How to format your references using the Journal of Experimental Botany citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Experimental Botany. 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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
Whitesides GM. 2006. The origins and the future of microfluidics. Nature 442, 368–373.
A journal article with 2 authors
Kelley KA, Cottrell E. 2009. Water and the oxidation state of subduction zone magmas. Science (New York, N.Y.) 325, 605–607.
A journal article with 3 authors
Katz RF, Spiegelman M, Holtzman B. 2006. The dynamics of melt and shear localization in partially molten aggregates. Nature 442, 676–679.
A journal article with 11 or more authors
Ekiert DC, Bhabha G, Elsliger M-A, Friesen RHE, Jongeneelen M, Throsby M, Goudsmit J, Wilson IA. 2009. Antibody recognition of a highly conserved influenza virus epitope. Science (New York, N.Y.) 324, 246–251.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Yao Y, Liu S. 2014. Ultrasonic Technology for Desiccant Regeneration. Singapore: John Wiley & Sons Singapore Pte. Ltd.
An edited book
Eadie MJ. 2016. Antiepileptic Drugs and Pregnancy: A Guide for Prescribers (F Vajda, Ed.). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
A chapter in an edited book
Moore PB. 2011. How Small is Small? In: Luisi PL,, In: Stano P, eds. The Minimal Cell: The Biophysics of Cell Compartment and the Origin of Cell Functionality. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 65–71.

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 Experimental Botany.

Blog post
Andrews R. 2016. Man Dies After Falling Into Yellowstone Hot Spring. IFLScience.

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. 1973. Review of Selected Projects Under the Bilingual Education Program. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
Moore KC. 2014. Coping strategies for adolescents whose parents have cancer: A curriculum.

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
Greenhouse L. 2007. Oral Dissents Give Ginsburg A New Voice. New York Times, A1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Whitesides, 2006).
This sentence cites two references (Whitesides, 2006; Kelley and Cottrell, 2009).

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

  • Two authors: (Kelley and Cottrell, 2009)
  • Three or more authors: (Ekiert et al., 2009)

About the journal

Full journal titleJournal of Experimental Botany
AbbreviationJ. Exp. Bot.
ISSN (print)0022-0957
ISSN (online)1460-2431
ScopePlant Science
Physiology

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