How to format your references using the mBio citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for mBio. 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

Bourzac K. 2012. Interventions: Live long and prosper. Nature 492:S18-20.

A journal article with 2 authors

Chen D, Savidge T. 2015. BIOPHYSICS. Comment on “Extreme electric fields power catalysis in the active site of ketosteroid isomerase.” Science 349:936.

A journal article with 3 authors

Kennedy M, Mrofka D, von der Borch C. 2008. Snowball Earth termination by destabilization of equatorial permafrost methane clathrate. Nature 453:642–645.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Gorre ME, Mohammed M, Ellwood K, Hsu N, Paquette R, Rao PN, Sawyers CL. 2001. Clinical resistance to STI-571 cancer therapy caused by BCR-ABL gene mutation or amplification. Science 293:876–880.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

AIChE Equipment Testing Procedure. 1993. Particle Size Classifiers. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

2012. Google and the Law: Empirical Approaches to Legal Aspects of Knowledge-Economy Business Models. T. M. C. Asser Press, The Hague, The Netherlands.

A chapter in an edited book

Balliauw M, Decoster X. 2012. Hosting Your Own NuGet Server, p. 105–153. In Decoster, X (ed.), Pro NuGet. Apress, Berkeley, CA.

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 mBio.

Blog post

Andrew E. 2014. Watch The Antares Rocket Launch Live. IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/orbital-sciences-antares-rocket-launch-cargo-iss/. Retrieved 30 October 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. 2005. Air Traffic Control: Characteristics and Performance of Selected International Air Navigation Service Providers and Lessons Learned from Their Commercialization. GAO-05-769. 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

Huger Marsh DP. 2012. Perspectives of disciplinary problems and practices in elementary schools. Doctoral dissertation. Capella University, Minneapolis, MN.

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

Baker L. 2007. A Canadian Condo Boom. New York Times.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in parentheses:

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	mBio
Abbreviation	MBio
ISSN (online)	2150-7511
Scope	Microbiology Virology