How to format your references using the International Journal of Biological Sciences citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for International Journal of Biological 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

Ainsworth C. Immunology: A many layered thing. Nature. 2012 Dec 20;492(7429):S52-4.

A journal article with 2 authors

Mullins CB, Sitz GO. Chemistry. Taking a selective bite out of methane. Science. 2008 Feb 8;319(5864):736–7.

A journal article with 3 authors

Mishra L, Derynck R, Mishra B. Transforming growth factor-beta signaling in stem cells and cancer. Science. 2005 Oct 7;310(5745):68–71.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Russell RJ, Haire LF, Stevens DJ, Collins PJ, Lin YP, Blackburn GM, et al. The structure of H5N1 avian influenza neuraminidase suggests new opportunities for drug design. Nature. 2006 Sep 7;443(7107):45–9.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

McLeish B. Successful Marketing Strategies for Nonprofit Organizations. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2010.

An edited book

Greefrath G. Teaching and Learning Mathematical Modelling: Approaches and Developments from German Speaking Countries. Vorhölter K, editor. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. VII, 42 p. 12 illus. (ICME-13 Topical Surveys).

A chapter in an edited book

Zalensky A, Mudrak O, Zalenskaya I. Chromosome Positioning in Spermatozoa. In: Zini A, Agarwal A, editors. Sperm Chromatin: Biological and Clinical Applications in Male Infertility and Assisted Reproduction. New York, NY: Springer; 2011. p. 69–80.

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 International Journal of Biological Sciences.

Blog post

O`Callaghan J. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Study Confirms That Comets Are Remnants Of The Early Solar System. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/space/study-confirms-that-comets-are-remnants-of-the-early-solar-system/

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. No Child Left Behind Act: Education Assistance Could Help States Better Measure Progress of Students with Limited English Proficiency. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2007 Mar. Report No.: GAO-07-646T.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Hess JP. Exploring the Challenges of Training and Developing Millennials in the Business Environment [Doctoral dissertation]. [Scottsdale, AZ]: Northcentral University; 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

George N. Invisibly Black. New York Times. 2017 Jan 13;BR14.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in parentheses:

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	International Journal of Biological Sciences
Abbreviation	Int. J. Biol. Sci.
ISSN (online)	1449-2288
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Cell Biology Developmental Biology Molecular Biology Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology