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

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

Spielmann, C., 2014. Ultrafast dynamics. Electrons take the fast track through silicon. Science 346, 1293–1294.

A journal article with 2 authors

Nutman, A.P., Friend, C.R.L., 2007. Comment on “A vestige of Earth’s oldest ophiolite.” Science 318, 746.

A journal article with 3 authors

Field, J., Cronin, A., Bridge, C., 2006. Future fitness and helping in social queues. Nature 441, 214–217.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Carpenter, S.R., DeFries, R., Dietz, T., Mooney, H.A., Polasky, S., Reid, W.V., Scholes, R.J., 2006. Ecology. Millennium ecosystem assessment: research needs. Science 314, 257–258.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Todeschini, R., Baccini, A., 2016. Handbook of Bibliometric Indicators. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany.

An edited book

Barsegian, G.A., Begehr, H.G.W. (Eds.), 2005. Topics in Analysis and its Applications, NATO Science Series II: Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.

A chapter in an edited book

Tenny, L., Hirani, Z., 2010. Loading Entities and Navigation Properties, in: Hirani, Z. (Ed.), Entity Framework 4.0 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach. Apress, Berkeley, CA, pp. 155–188.

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 Development.

Blog post

Andrew, D., 2017. Too Many Tabs – Why Some People Can Multitask Online And Others Can’t [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/brain/too-many-tabs-why-some-people-can-multitask-online-and-others-cant/ (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, 2003. Maritime Administration: Weaknesses Identified in Management of the Title XI Loan Guarantee Program (No. GAO-03-728T). 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

Payne, L.G., 2015. The experience of caring for women with drug or alcohol problems in the general hospital (Doctoral dissertation). Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL.

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

Kelly, M., 1992. THE 1992 ELECTIONS: CELEBRATION MAN IN THE NEWS: William Jefferson Blythe Clinton; A Man Who Wants to Be Liked, and Is. New York Times A1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Spielmann, 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Nutman and Friend, 2007; Spielmann, 2014).

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

Two authors: (Nutman and Friend, 2007)
Three or more authors: (Carpenter et al., 2006)

About the journal

Full journal title	Mechanisms of Development
Abbreviation	Mech. Dev.
ISSN (print)	0925-4773
Scope	Developmental Biology Embryology