How to format your references using the Investigative Genetics citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Investigative Genetics. 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

1. Mirabel IF. Astronomy. Very energetic gamma-rays from microquasars and binary pulsars. Science. 2006;312:1759–60.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Kim TW, Choi K-S. Nanoporous BiVO4 photoanodes with dual-layer oxygen evolution catalysts for solar water splitting. Science. 2014;343:990–4.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Fialkov A, Barkana R, Visbal E. The observable signature of late heating of the Universe during cosmic reionization. Nature. 2014;506:197–9.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Lendlein A, Jiang H, Jünger O, Langer R. Light-induced shape-memory polymers. Nature. 2005;434:879–82.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Walkenbach J. Excel® VBA Programming For Dummies®. Indianapolis, IN, USA: Wiley Publishing, Inc.; 2010.

An edited book

1. Simeonov L, Chirila E, editors. Chemicals as Intentional and Accidental Global Environmental Threats. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2006.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Kakkola L, Hedman K, Qiu J, Pintel D, S”derlund-Venermo M. Replication of and Protein Synthesis by TT Viruses. In: Villiers E-M de, Hausen HZ, editors. TT Viruses: The Still Elusive Human Pathogens. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009. p. 53–64.

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 Investigative Genetics.

Blog post

1. Carpineti A. Astronomers Have Spotted A “Lost” Planet The Size Of Neptune [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2017 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/space/astronomers-catch-a-neptunesized-planet-playing-hide-and-seek/

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

1. Government Accountability Office. Surface Transportation: Preliminary Observations on Efforts to Restructure Current Program. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2008 Feb. Report No.: GAO-08-478T.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Queener JD. A Post-School Outcome Study of Students with Learning Disabilities [Doctoral dissertation]. [Washington, DC]: George Washington University; 2015.

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

1. Murphy S. Feeding More for Less in Niger. New York Times. 2005 Aug 19;A19.

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	Investigative Genetics
Abbreviation	Investig. Genet.
ISSN (online)	2041-2223
Scope	Genetics Molecular Biology Pathology and Forensic Medicine