How to format your references using the Mechanisms of Ageing and Development citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Mechanisms of Ageing and Development. 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

Liu, Z., 2011. Atmospheric science. Glacial cycles and Indian monsoon--a southern push. Science 333, 706–708.

A journal article with 2 authors

Rizzoli, S.O., Betz, W.J., 2004. The structural organization of the readily releasable pool of synaptic vesicles. Science 303, 2037–2039.

A journal article with 3 authors

Song, Y., Wang, J., Yau, S.-T., 2014. Controlled glucose consumption in yeast using a transistor-like device. Sci. Rep. 4, 5429.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Yuan, G., Rogers, E.T.F., Roy, T., Adamo, G., Shen, Z., Zheludev, N.I., 2014. Planar super-oscillatory lens for sub-diffraction optical needles at violet wavelengths. Sci. Rep. 4, 6333.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Lieberman, N.P., 2010. Process Engineering for a Small Planet. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Kim, J.-H., Yang, W., Jo, J., Sincak, P., Myung, H. (Eds.), 2015. Robot Intelligence Technology and Applications 3: Results from the 3rd International Conference on Robot Intelligence Technology and Applications, Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing. Springer International Publishing, Cham.

A chapter in an edited book

Cetinkaya, B., 2011. Managing Outside Your Organisation, in: Cetinkaya, B., Ewer, G., Klaas-Wissing, T., Piotrowicz, W., Tyssen, C. (Eds.), Sustainable Supply Chain Management: Practical Ideas for Moving Towards Best Practice. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp. 117–151.

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 Mechanisms of Ageing and Development.

Blog post

Andrew, E., 2015. The Age Of Drones Has Arrived Quicker Than The Laws That Govern Them [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/technology/age-drones-has-arrived-quicker-laws-govern-them/ (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, 1998. Status Information: FAA’s Year 2000 Business Continuity and Contingency Planning Efforts Are Ongoing (No. AIMD-99-40R). 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

Brooks, B.M., 2017. Applying Andragogical Principles to Real-Time Embedded Parental Coaching When Helping Their Children with Hearing Loss to Talk (Doctoral dissertation). Lindenwood University, St. Charles, MO.

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

Pilon, M., 2013. For Some Players, Tax Ensures a Loss Even After a Win. New York Times B9.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Liu, 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Liu, 2011; Rizzoli and Betz, 2004).

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

Two authors: (Rizzoli and Betz, 2004)
Three or more authors: (Yuan et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Mechanisms of Ageing and Development
Abbreviation	Mech. Ageing Dev.
ISSN (print)	0047-6374
Scope	Ageing Developmental Biology