How to format your references using the Journal of Developmental Biology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Developmental Biology. 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

Mogi, K. Cognitive Factors Correlating with the Metacognition of the Phenomenal Properties of Experience. Sci. Rep. 2013, 3, 3354.

A journal article with 2 authors

Ewald, A.J.; Egeblad, M. Cancer: Sugar-Coated Cell Signalling. Nature 2014, 511, 298–299.

A journal article with 3 authors

Driscoll, R.; Hudson, A.; Jackson, S.P. Yeast Rtt109 Promotes Genome Stability by Acetylating Histone H3 on Lysine 56. Science 2007, 315, 649–652.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Martinez, P.; McGranahan, N.; Birkbak, N.J.; Gerlinger, M.; Swanton, C. Computational Optimisation of Targeted DNA Sequencing for Cancer Detection. Sci. Rep. 2013, 3, 3309.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Mysak, J. Encyclopedia of Municipal Bonds; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, 2011; ISBN 9781118531624.

An edited book

Molecular Mechanisms of Bacterial Infection via the Gut; Sasakawa, C., Ed.; Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology; Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2009; Vol. 337; ISBN 9783642018459.

A chapter in an edited book

Hicks, S. The Funding of Higher Education in England. In Higher Education Management and Operational Research: Demonstrating New Practices and Metaphors; Bell, G., Warwick, J., Galbraith, P., Eds.; SensePublishers: Rotterdam, 2012; pp. 79–94 ISBN 9789460919763.

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 Developmental Biology.

Blog post

Andrew, E. Morgan Freeman’s Voice on Helium Available online: https://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/morgan-freeman’s-voice-helium/ (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 Federal Program To Strengthen Developing Institutions of Higher Education Lacks Direction; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1979;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Koons, L.M. An Outreach Program for Homeless Individuals: A Grant Proposal. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach: Long Beach, CA, 2013.

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

Rojas, R.; Fitzsimmons, E.G. Crane Collapse Kills Man on Busy Manhattan Block. New York Times 2016, A16.

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	Journal of Developmental Biology
Abbreviation	J. Dev. Biol.
ISSN (online)	2221-3759
Scope

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