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

Allen GE. Essays on science and society. Is a new eugenics afoot? Science 2001; 294: 59–61.

A journal article with 2 authors

Etienne-Manneville S and Hall A. Rho GTPases in cell biology. Nature 2002; 420: 629–35.

A journal article with 3 authors

Pronin SV, Reiher CA, and Shenvi RA. Stereoinversion of tertiary alcohols to tertiary-alkyl isonitriles and amines. Nature 2013; 501: 195–9.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Drake JF, Swisdak M, Cattell C, Shay MA, Rogers BN, and Zeiler A. Formation of electron holes and particle energization during magnetic reconnection. Science 2003; 299: 873–7.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Duffy DJ. Finite Difference Methods in Financial Engineering. Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2006.

An edited book

Cowin SC and Doty SB, editors. Tissue Mechanics. New York, NY: Springer, 2007.

A chapter in an edited book

van Dijk E, de Cremer D, Mulder LB, and Stouten J. How Do We React to Feedback in Social Dilemmas? In: Biel A, Eek D, Gärling T, Gustafsson M, eds. New Issues and Paradigms in Research on Social Dilemmas. Boston, MA: Springer US, 2008. 43–56.

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. Scientists Create Artificial Neuron that Functions Like the Real Thing. IFLScience. 2015.https://www.iflscience.com/brain/scientists-create-artificial-neuron-functions-real-thing/ (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. Information Technology: Management Needs to Address Reporting of IRS Investments’ Cost, Schedule, and Scope Information. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2015.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Laskey E. Plasma glucagon during development of insulin resistance among healthy individuals. 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

Feeney K. Warming Up to Sausage and Dogs. New York Times. 2006; NJ13.

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