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

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

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Download the output style file
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

Solomon, S., 2004. The hole truth. Nature 427, 289–291.

A journal article with 2 authors

Baron, C.L., Malhotra, V., 2002. Role of diacylglycerol in PKD recruitment to the TGN and protein transport to the plasma membrane. Science 295, 325–328.

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

Nizet, V., Ohtake, T., Lauth, X., Trowbridge, J., Rudisill, J., Dorschner, R.A., Pestonjamasp, V., Piraino, J., Huttner, K., Gallo, R.L., 2001. Innate antimicrobial peptide protects the skin from invasive bacterial infection. Nature 414, 454–457.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

DeRosa, D.F., 2013. Foreign Exchange Operations. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Gimeno Gasca, C., 2015. CMOS Continuous-Time Adaptive Equalizers for High-Speed Serial Links, Analog Circuits and Signal Processing. Springer International Publishing, Cham.

A chapter in an edited book

Ansari, D., Price, G., Holloway, I., 2010. Typical and Atypical Development of Basic Numerical Magnitude Representations: A Review of Behavioral and Neuroimaging Studies, in: Ferrari, M., Vuletic, L. (Eds.), The Developmental Relations among Mind, Brain and Education: Essays in Honor of Robbie Case. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp. 105–127.

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 Theoretical Biology.

Blog post

Davis, J., 2016. Tardigrade DNA Analysis Reveals A Whole Genetic Arsenal Used To Make Them Almost Indestructible [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/tardigrade-dna-analysis-reveals-a-whole-genetic-arsenal-used-to-make-them-almost-indestructible/ (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, 1995. Early Childhood Centers: Services to Prepare Children for School Often Limited (No. HEHS-95-21). 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

Weisko, P., 2017. Wading Tiger Swimming Dragon: A Study on Comparative Indo-Sino Naval Development (Doctoral dissertation). George Washington University, Washington, DC.

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

Jacoby, S., 2015. The First Victims of the First Crusade. New York Times SR5.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Solomon, 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Baron and Malhotra, 2002; Solomon, 2004).

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

Two authors: (Baron and Malhotra, 2002)
Three or more authors: (Nizet et al., 2001)

About the journal

Full journal title	Journal of Theoretical Biology
Abbreviation	J. Theor. Biol.
ISSN (print)	0022-5193
Scope	General Agricultural and Biological Sciences General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology General Immunology and Microbiology Applied Mathematics Modelling and Simulation Statistics and Probability General Medicine