How to format your references using the GigaScience citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for GigaScience. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Download the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

1. Conselice CJ. Astronomy. Unveiling the formation of massive galaxies. Science. 2004;304:399–400.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Wallace SC, Wang X. Two new carnivores from an unusual late Tertiary forest biota in eastern North America. Nature. 2004;431:556–9.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Jedema FJ, Filip AT, van Wees BJ. Electrical spin injection and accumulation at room temperature in an all-metal mesoscopic spin valve. Nature. 2001;410:345–8.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Minamino T, Morimoto YV, Kinoshita M, Aldridge PD, Namba K. The bacterial flagellar protein export apparatus processively transports flagellar proteins even with extremely infrequent ATP hydrolysis. Sci Rep. 2014;4:7579.

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

1. Ziegler M. Geotechnische Nachweise nach EC 7 und DIN 1054. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2012.

An edited book

1. Camenisch J, Kesdogan D, editors. iNetSec 2009 – Open Research Problems in Network Security: IFIP WG 11.4 International Workshop, Zurich, Switzerland, April 23-24, 2009, Revised Selected Papers. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009.

A chapter in an edited book

1. de Jong PTVM. Cataract, Age-Related Macular Degeneration, and Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma: Risk Factors. In: Scholl HPN, Massof RW, West S, editors. Ophthalmology and the Ageing Society. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013. p. 33–55.

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for GigaScience.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. Researchers discover how mosquitos locate hosts’ skin for feeding [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2013 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/researchers-discover-how-mosquitos-locate-hosts-skin-feeding/

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

1. Government Accountability Office. Transportation and Telecommunications Reports and Testimony: May 1992 - April 1993. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1993 Aug. Report No.: RCED-93-187.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

1. Knehans A. As you like it: The road to design [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2013.

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

1. Otis J. Unflinching Faith Moors 2 Victims of Hurricane Sandy in Life’s Storms. New York Times. 2017 Oct 28;A23.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [1].
This sentence cites two references [1,2].
This sentence cites four references [1–4].

About the journal

Full journal title	GigaScience
Abbreviation	Gigascience
ISSN (online)	2047-217X
Scope