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

Check, E., 2006. Biomedical funding remains flat. Nature 439, 644.

A journal article with 2 authors

Stark, L.A., Pompei, K., 2010. Winner of Science Prize for Online Resources in Education. Making genetics easy to understand. Science 327, 538–539.

A journal article with 3 authors

Vannucchi, P., Remitti, F., Bettelli, G., 2008. Geological record of fluid flow and seismogenesis along an erosive subducting plate boundary. Nature 451, 699–703.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Gange, A.C., Gange, E.G., Sparks, T.H., Boddy, L., 2007. Rapid and recent changes in fungal fruiting patterns. Science 316, 71.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Henriksen, R.N., 2015. Scale Invariance. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany.

An edited book

Wißmann, P., 2007. Electrical Resistivity of Thin Metal Films, Springer Tracts in Modern Physics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

Lavatelli, F., Palladini, G., Merlini, G., 2010. Pathogenesis of Systemic Amyloidoses, in: Gertz, M.A., Rajkumar, S.V. (Eds.), Amyloidosis: Diagnosis and Treatment. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ, pp. 49–64.

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

Andrew, E., 2015. Scientists Dissociate Benefits Of Medical Marijuana From Its Negative Side Effects [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/brain/scientists-dissociate-benefits-medical-marijuana-its-negative-side-effects/ (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, 1978. Proposed Procedure for Access by GAO to Records of Students in the Murphy School District (No. B-164031(1).174). 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

Liu, S., 2010. Methods for generating addressable focus cues in stereoscopic displays (Doctoral dissertation). University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.

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

Shpigel, B., 2016. Patriots Feast on Petty, as on So Many Others. New York Times SP3.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Check, 2006).
This sentence cites two references (Check, 2006; Stark and Pompei, 2010).

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

Two authors: (Stark and Pompei, 2010)
Three or more authors: (Gange et al., 2007)

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