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

Bender E. Developing world: Global warning. Nature 2014; 509: S64-5.

A journal article with 2 authors

Martin CH and Wainwright PC. Multiple fitness peaks on the adaptive landscape drive adaptive radiation in the wild. Science 2013; 339: 208–11.

A journal article with 3 authors

Zeng C, Liu X, and Wang G. Electrically tunable graphene plasmonic quasicrystal metasurfaces for transformation optics. Sci Rep 2014; 4: 5763.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Wang J, Liu Y-S, Zhu W-X, Zhang F-Q, and Zhou Z-H. Olanzapine-induced weight gain plays a key role in the potential cardiovascular risk: evidence from heart rate variability analysis. Sci Rep 2014; 4: 7394.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Burrows GE and Tyrl RJ. Toxic Plants of North America. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.

An edited book

Smith C. Digging It Up Down Under: A Practical Guide to Doing Archaeology in Australia. New York, NY: Springer, 2007.

A chapter in an edited book

Avramova Z, De Vleeschauwer D, Wittevrongel S, and Bruneel H. Dimensioning Multicast-Enabled Networks for IP-Transported TV Channels. In: Mason L, Drwiega T, Yan J, eds. Managing Traffic Performance in Converged Networks: 20th International Teletraffic Congress, ITC20 2007, Ottawa, Canada, June 17-21, 2007. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2007. 6–17.

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

Hale T. Which Country Consumes The Most Calories? IFLScience. 2015.https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/which-countries-consume-most-amount-calories/ (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. Inventory Management: The Army Could Reduce Logistics Costs for Aviation Parts by Adopting Best Practices. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1997.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Herkert HL. Toward an Unseen Shore: Imaginative Thinking in Childhood Grief. 2015.

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

Hodara S. Where Warhol and Chagall Adorn the Walls. New York Times. 2016; WE10.

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