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

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

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
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
Bernardini E (2011) Astronomy. Astronomy in the time domain. Science 331:686–687
A journal article with 2 authors
Bauer J, Prenzel M (2012) Science education. European teacher training reforms. Science 336:1642–1643
A journal article with 3 authors
Brosco V, Ying Z-J, Lorenzana J (2013) Exact exchange-correlation potential of an ionic Hubbard model with a free surface. Sci Rep 3:2172
A journal article with 5 or more authors
Dehaene S, Izard V, Spelke E, Pica P (2008) Log or linear? Distinct intuitions of the number scale in Western and Amazonian indigene cultures. Science 320:1217–1220

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Chu PP (2011) Embedded SoPC Design with Nios II Processor and VHDL Examples. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ
An edited book
Dym H, Kaashoek MA, Lancaster P, et al (eds) (2012) A Panorama of Modern Operator Theory and Related Topics: The Israel Gohberg Memorial Volume. Springer, Basel
A chapter in an edited book
Avanzini M, Moser G (2009) Dependency Pairs and Polynomial Path Orders. In: Treinen R (ed) Rewriting Techniques and Applications: 20th International Conference, RTA 2009 Brasília, Brazil, June 29 - July 1, 2009 Proceedings. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 48–62

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 Mathematical Biology.

Blog post
Andrews R (2016) “Very Right Wing” Europeans Are The Most Satisfied With Their Sex Lives. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/very-right-wing-europeans-are-the-most-satisfied-with-their-sex-lives/. 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 (1995) Combined Fund Update. 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
Shina YE (2013) Youth under the care of the child welfare and juvenile justice systems: A grant proposal for crossover youth. 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
Vecsey G (2013) They Left Their Hearts at Coogan’s Bluff. New York Times D1

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Bernardini 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Bernardini 2011; Bauer and Prenzel 2012).

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

  • Two authors: (Bauer and Prenzel 2012)
  • Three or more authors: (Dehaene et al. 2008)

About the journal

Full journal titleJournal of Mathematical Biology
AbbreviationJ. Math. Biol.
ISSN (print)0303-6812
ISSN (online)1432-1416
ScopeAgricultural and Biological Sciences (miscellaneous)
Applied Mathematics
Modelling and Simulation

Other styles