How to format your references using the Journal of Molecular Signaling citation style

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

Hartwig JF. Chemical synthesis. Raising the bar for the ‘perfect reaction’. Science 2002; 297: 1653–4.

A journal article with 2 authors

Li A and Yong X. Entanglement guarantees emergence of cooperation in quantum prisoner’s dilemma games on networks. Sci Rep 2014; 4: 6286.

A journal article with 3 authors

Yang L, Garbe DS, and Bashaw GJ. A frazzled/DCC-dependent transcriptional switch regulates midline axon guidance. Science 2009; 324: 944–7.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Tang K, Qiu C, Ke M, Lu J, Ye Y, and Liu Z. Anomalous refraction of airborne sound through ultrathin metasurfaces. Sci Rep 2014; 4: 6517.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Ruppel W. Wiley GAAP for Governments 2015. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2015.

An edited book

Baughman AK, Gao J, Pan J-Y, and Petrushin VA, editors. Multimedia Data Mining and Analytics: Disruptive Innovation. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

Huggenberger P, Epting J, Affolter A, Dresmann H, Kirchhofer R, Meier E, et al. Methods. In: Huggenberger P, Epting J, eds. Urban Geology: Process-Oriented Concepts for Adaptive and Integrated Resource Management. Basel: Springer, 2011. 53–93.

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 Molecular Signaling.

Blog post

Andrew E. How Psychology Can Help Us Solve Climate Change. IFLScience. 2016.https://www.iflscience.com/brain/how-psychology-can-help-us-solve-climate-change/ (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. The Management and Operation of FCC’s Public Reference Rooms. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Ratliff DJ. Teen parenting curriculum: A grant proposal project. 2009.

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

Kelly J. A Girl Wants to Know. New York Times. 2015; BR18.

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 Molecular Signaling
Abbreviation	J. Mol. Signal.
ISSN (online)	1750-2187
Scope	Biochemistry Cell Biology Molecular Biology