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

Lee PH. Should we adjust for a confounder if empirical and theoretical criteria yield contradictory results? A simulation study. Sci Rep. 2014 Aug 15;4:6085.

A journal article with 2 authors

Bauch CT, Galvani AP. Epidemiology. Social factors in epidemiology. Science. 2013 Oct 4;342(6154):47–9.

A journal article with 3 authors

Hafed ZM, Goffart L, Krauzlis RJ. A neural mechanism for microsaccade generation in the primate superior colliculus. Science. 2009 Feb 13;323(5916):940–3.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Krawczyk M, Milkiewicz M, Marschall HU, Bartz C, Grünhage F, Wunsch E, et al. Variant adiponutrin confers genetic protection against cholestatic itch. Sci Rep. 2014 Oct 9;4:6374.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Sue DW. Overcoming Our Racism. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2003.

An edited book

Drira K, editor. Software Architecture: 7th European Conference, ECSA 2013, Montpellier, France, July 1-5, 2013. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013. XVI, 354 p. 133 illus. (Lecture Notes in Computer Science; vol. 7957).

A chapter in an edited book

Walls DF, Milburn GJ. Representations of the Electromagnetic Field. In: Walls DF, Milburn GJ, editors. Quantum Optics. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2008. p. 57–72.

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

Andrew E. Researchers Produce The First Synthetic Gasoline From Plants. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015.

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. Financial Management: Actions Needed to Ensure Effective Implementation of NASA’s Accounting System. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1991 Aug. Report No.: AFMD-91-74.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Perlstein JA. Support for families affected by incarceration: A grant proposal [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2014.

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

(nyt) SK. World Briefing | Europe: Russia: Another Catholic Priest Barred. New York Times. 2002 Sep 12;A6.

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

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