How to format your references using the Interdisciplinary Sciences: Computational Life Sciences citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Interdisciplinary Sciences: Computational 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

Smolke CD (2009) Cell biology. It’s the DNA that counts. Science 324:1156–1157

A journal article with 2 authors

Nelson WJ, Nusse R (2004) Convergence of Wnt, beta-catenin, and cadherin pathways. Science 303:1483–1487

A journal article with 3 authors

Shin S-B, Golovkin M, Reddy ASN (2014) A pollen-specific calmodulin-binding protein, NPG1, interacts with putative pectate lyases. Sci Rep 4:5263

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Rosenbaum RS, Stuss DT, Levine B, Tulving E (2007) Theory of mind is independent of episodic memory. Science 318:1257

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Eggert H, Kauschke W (2012) Structural Bearings. Ernst & Sohn Verlag für Architektur und technische Wissenschaften GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin, Germany

An edited book

Veeravalli B (2006) Distributed Multimedia Retrieval Strategies for Large Scale Networked Systems. Springer US, Boston, MA

A chapter in an edited book

Romeu JL (2008) Statistical Thinking and Data Analysis: Enhancing Human Rights Work. In: Asher J, Banks D, Scheuren FJ (eds) Statistical Methods for Human Rights. Springer, New York, NY, pp 65–85

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 Interdisciplinary Sciences: Computational Life Sciences.

Blog post

Fang J (2015) DARPA’s New Prosthetic Hand Lets Paralyzed Man “Feel” Sensations. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/paralyzed-man-feels-sensations-darpas-prosthetic-hand/. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (2001) Intercity Passenger Rail: The Congress Faces Critical Decisions About the Role of and Funding for Intercity Passenger Rail Systems. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Chiu Y-YL (2012) Multicultural educational policies: A correlational investigation of cultural competencies and feelings of inclusion. Doctoral dissertation, University of Phoenix

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

Kelly M (1993) Woman Who Is Miami Prosecutor Joins Clinton List for Justice Dept. New York Times A20

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	Interdisciplinary Sciences: Computational Life Sciences
Abbreviation	Interdiscip. Sci.
ISSN (print)	1913-2751
ISSN (online)	1867-1462
Scope	General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology Computer Science Applications Health Informatics