How to format your references using the Hypotheses in the Life Sciences citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Hypotheses in the Life Sciences. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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]

Fitch T. Journal club. A cognitive biologist foresees breakthroughs in understanding vocal learning. Nature, (2010) 466(7303), 163.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Caliskan S, Laref A. Spin transport properties of n-polyacene molecules (n = 1-15) connected to Ni surface electrodes: theoretical analysis. Scientific reports, (2014) 4, 7363.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

White N, Thompson M, Barwise T. Understanding the thermal evolution of deep-water continental margins. Nature, (2003) 426(6964), 334–343.

A journal article with 10 or more authors

[1]

Boggon TJ, Murray J, Chappuis-Flament S, Wong E, Gumbiner BM, Shapiro L. C-cadherin ectodomain structure and implications for cell adhesion mechanisms. Science (New York, N.Y.), (2002) 296(5571), 1308–1313.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Zeng K, Lou W, Li M. Multihop Wireless Networks. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2011.

An edited book

[1]

Chen H, Ji H, Sun L, Wang H, Qian T, Ruan T, editors. Knowledge Graph and Semantic Computing: Semantic, Knowledge, and Linked Big Data: First China Conference, CCKS 2016, Beijing, China, September 19-22, 2016, Revised Selected Papers. Singapore: Springer; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Nica DV, Bordean D-M, Borozan AB, Gergen I, Bura M, Banatean-Dunea I. Use of Land Snails (Pulmonata) for Monitoring Copper Pollution in Terrestrial Ecosystems. In: Whitacre DM, editor. Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. New York, NY: Springer; 2013. p. 95–137.

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 Hypotheses in the Life Sciences.

Blog post

[1]

Carpineti A. China’s Moon Rover Is Officially Dead [Internet]. IFLScience(2016) [cited 2018 Oct 30] Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/space/chinas-moon-rover-is-officially-dead/

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. Spectrum Management: NTIA Planning and Processes Need Strengthening to Promote the Efficient Use of Spectrum by Federal Agencies. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2011.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Foster HC. The effect of droplet size and sprayer type on physical drift. (2017)

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]

Kelly M. THE 1992 CAMPAIGN: The Democrats; Clinton, on Tour of Western States, Chides G.O.P. for Investigating His Mother. New York Times(1992) , A21.

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	Hypotheses in the Life Sciences
ISSN (print)	2042-8960
Scope