How to format your references using the IET Systems Biology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for IET Systems Biology. 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

Rakic, P.: ‘Neuroscience. Genetic control of cortical convolutions’Science, 2004, 303, (5666), pp. 1983–1984.

A journal article with 2 authors

Rothenberg, K.H., Terry, S.F.: ‘Human genetics. Before it’s too late--addressing fear of genetic information’Science, 2002, 297, (5579), pp. 196–197.

A journal article with 3 authors

Robinson, I.M., Ranjan, R., Schwarz, T.L.: ‘Synaptotagmins I and IV promote transmitter release independently of Ca(2+) binding in the C(2)A domain’Nature, 2002, 418, (6895), pp. 336–340.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Hur, J., Im, K., Hwang, S., et al.: ‘DNA hydrogel-based supercapacitors operating in physiological fluids’Sci. Rep., 2013, 3, p. 1282.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hopkins, B.R.: ‘Starting and Managing a Nonprofit Organization’ (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2009)

An edited book

Luo, Y. (Ed.): ‘Cooperative Design, Visualization, and Engineering: 8th International Conference, CDVE 2011, Hong Kong, China, September 11-14, 2011. Proceedings’ (Springer, 2011)

A chapter in an edited book

Frowein, J.A.: ‘Comment: State Responsibility and Peace’, in Nolte, G. (Ed.): ‘Peace through International Law: The Role of the International Law Commission. A Colloquium at the Occasion of its Sixtieth Anniversary’ (Springer, 2009), pp. 47–51

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 IET Systems Biology.

Blog post

Andrew, D.: ‘Red, Yellow, Pink And Green: How The World’s Languages Name The Rainbow’, https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/red-yellow-pink-and-green-how-the-worlds-languages-name-the-rainbow/, accessed October 2018

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

Government Accountability Office: ‘Education and Employment Issue Area: Active Assignments’ (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1996)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Yu, W.: ‘Impacts of storms and sea-level rise on coastal evolution between two capes: Onslow Bay, North Carolina’. Doctoral dissertation, University of North Carolina, 2012

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

Sisario, B.: ‘Pandora Seeks a Way Out of the Internet Radio Doldrums. Cue Questlove’New York Times, 2016, p. B6.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference [2].
This sentence cites two references [2, 4].
This sentence cites four references [2, 4, 6, 8].

About the journal

Full journal title	IET Systems Biology
Abbreviation	IET Syst. Biol.
ISSN (print)	1751-8849
Scope	Biotechnology Cell Biology Genetics Molecular Biology Modelling and Simulation