How to format your references using the Journal of Microbiological Methods citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Microbiological Methods. 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
Pusey, P.N., 2011. Physics. Brownian motion goes ballistic. Science 332, 802–803.
A journal article with 2 authors
Vidale, J.E., Earle, P.S., 2000. Fine-scale heterogeneity in the Earth’s inner core. Nature 404, 273–275.
A journal article with 3 authors
Childs, A.M., Gosset, D., Webb, Z., 2013. Universal computation by multiparticle quantum walk. Science 339, 791–794.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Ouyang, M., Huang, J.L., Cheung, C.L., Lieber, C.M., 2001. Energy gaps in “metallic” single-walled carbon nanotubes. Science 292, 702–705.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
da Silva, L.S., Simões, R., Gervásio, H., 2012. Design of Steel Structures. Ernst & Sohn Verlag für Architektur und technische Wissenschaften GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin, Germany.
An edited book
Starr, H. (Ed.), 2015. Bruce M. Russett: Pioneer in the Scientific and Normative Study of War, Peace, and Policy, SpringerBriefs on Pioneers in Science and Practice. Springer International Publishing, Cham.
A chapter in an edited book
Bergman, D., Hooker, J.N., 2012. Graph Coloring Facets from All-Different Systems, in: Beldiceanu, N., Jussien, N., Pinson, É. (Eds.), Integration of AI and OR Techniques in Contraint Programming for Combinatorial Optimzation Problems: 9th International Conference, CPAIOR 2012, Nantes, France, May 28 – June1, 2012. Proceedings, Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp. 50–65.

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 Microbiological Methods.

Blog post
Andrews, R., 2015. Why Do Capuchin Monkeys Cover Themselves In Smelly Substances? [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/why-do-capuchin-monkeys-anoint-themselves/ (accessed 10.30.18).

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, 2015. Farm Program Modernization: Farm Service Agency Needs to Demonstrate the Capacity to Manage IT Initiatives (No. GAO-15-506). 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
Clavio, G., 2008. Uses and gratifications of Internet collegiate sport message board users (Doctoral dissertation). Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.

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
Kishkovsky, S., 2015. Russian Publisher Adds Its Own Slant, Writers Say. New York Times A10.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Pusey, 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Pusey, 2011; Vidale and Earle, 2000).

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

  • Two authors: (Vidale and Earle, 2000)
  • Three or more authors: (Ouyang et al., 2001)

About the journal

Full journal titleJournal of Microbiological Methods
AbbreviationJ. Microbiol. Methods
ISSN (print)0167-7012
ScopeMolecular Biology
Microbiology
Microbiology (medical)

Other styles