How to format your references using the Journal of Cell Communication and Signaling citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Cell Communication and Signaling. 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

Robinson TE (2004) Neuroscience. Addicted rats. Science 305:951–953

A journal article with 2 authors

Di Paolo G, De Camilli P (2006) Phosphoinositides in cell regulation and membrane dynamics. Nature 443:651–657

A journal article with 3 authors

Su D, Dou S, Wang G (2014) Single crystalline Co3O4 nanocrystals exposed with different crystal planes for Li-O2 batteries. Sci Rep 4:5767

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Bracht H, Nicols SP, Walukiewicz W, et al (2000) Large disparity between gallium and antimony self-diffusion in gallium antimonide. Nature 408:69–72

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bécherrawy T (2012) Mechanical and Electromagnetic Vibrations and Waves. John Wiley & Sons, Inc, Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Howlett RJ, Jain LC, Lee SH (eds) (2011) Sustainability in Energy and Buildings: Results of the Second International Conference on Sustainability in Energy and Buildings (SEB’10). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

A chapter in an edited book

Barach PR, Cosman PH (2015) Teams, Team Training, and the Role of Simulation. In: Barach PR, Jacobs JP, Lipshultz SE, Laussen PC (eds) Pediatric and Congenital Cardiac Care: Volume 2: Quality Improvement and Patient Safety. Springer, London, pp 69–90

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 Journal of Cell Communication and Signaling.

Blog post

Andrews R (2016) Brand New T. Rex Fossil Is One Of The “Most Significant Specimens” Ever Found. In: IFLScience. 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 (1998) Elementary and Secondary Education: Ed-Flex States Vary in Implementation of Waiver Process. 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

Acosta J (2013) Building bridges: A specialized training program for professionals in school settings to address bullying in LGBTQ youth: A grant proposal. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach

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

Gustines GG (2015) DC and Marvel, Beware: Valiant Is to Make Films. New York Times C3

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Robinson 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Robinson 2004; Di Paolo and De Camilli 2006).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Di Paolo and De Camilli 2006)
Three or more authors: (Bracht et al. 2000)

About the journal

Full journal title	Journal of Cell Communication and Signaling
Abbreviation	J. Cell Commun. Signal.
ISSN (print)	1873-9601
ISSN (online)	1873-961X
Scope	Biochemistry Cell Biology Molecular Biology

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