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

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

Gaston, K.J. Global Patterns in Biodiversity. Nature 2000, 405, 220–227.

A journal article with 2 authors

Burke, J.M.; Rieseberg, L.H. Fitness Effects of Transgenic Disease Resistance in Sunflowers. Science 2003, 300, 1250.

A journal article with 3 authors

Krauss, L.M.; Dodelson, S.; Meyer, S. Primordial Gravitational Waves and Cosmology. Science 2010, 328, 989–992.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Venail, P.A.; MacLean, R.C.; Bouvier, T.; Brockhurst, M.A.; Hochberg, M.E.; Mouquet, N. Diversity and Productivity Peak at Intermediate Dispersal Rate in Evolving Metacommunities. Nature 2008, 452, 210–214.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Subramanian, M.N. Plastics Additives and Testing; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, 2013; ISBN 9781118710128.

An edited book

Process Design for Natural Scientists: An Agile Model-Driven Approach; Lamprecht, A.-L., Margaria, T., Eds.; Communications in Computer and Information Science; Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2014; Vol. 500; ISBN 9783662450055.

A chapter in an edited book

Dobkin, P.L.; Hassed, C.S. Steps for Starting and Sustaining Programs. In Mindful Medical Practitioners: A Guide for Clinicians and Educators; Hassed, C.S., Ed.; Springer International Publishing: Cham, 2016; pp. 65–74 ISBN 9783319310640.

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 Molecular Sciences.

Blog post

Andrew, D. 18 “Healthy Habits” You Should Give Up In 2017 (accessed on 30 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 Financial Education and Counseling Pilot Program; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 2011;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Ashbran, M.C. Examining Student Learning in a Physics Pedagogical Content Knowledge Course. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach: Long Beach, CA, 2011.

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

Lee, L. The Best Decorated Tent You’ll Ever See. New York Times 2008, D3.

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	International Journal of Molecular Sciences
Abbreviation	Int. J. Mol. Sci.
ISSN (online)	1422-0067
Scope	Molecular Biology Catalysis Inorganic Chemistry Organic Chemistry Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Spectroscopy Computer Science Applications General Medicine