How to format your references using the Meta Gene citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Meta Gene. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Gravitz, L., 2012. Food science: taste bud hackers. Nature 486, S14-5.

A journal article with 2 authors

Zhou, W.-X., Chen, K.-Q., 2014. Enhancement of thermoelectric performance by reducing phonon thermal conductance in multiple core-shell nanowires. Sci. Rep. 4, 7150.

A journal article with 3 authors

Hathaway, D.H., Upton, L., Colegrove, O., 2013. Giant convection cells found on the Sun. Science 342, 1217–1219.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Phillips, B.L., Brown, G.P., Webb, J.K., Shine, R., 2006. Invasion and the evolution of speed in toads. Nature 439, 803.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bai, Q., Bai, Y., Ruan, W., 2017. Advances in Pipes and Pipelines. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Hendricks, V.F., Jørgensen, K.F., Lützen, J., Pedersen, S.A. (Eds.), 2006. Interactions: Mathematics, Physics and Philosophy, 1860–1930, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.

A chapter in an edited book

Lotfi, E., Elharoussi, M., Abdelmounim, E., 2016. VHDL Design and FPGA Implementation of the PWM Space Vector of an AC Machine Powered by a Voltage Inverter, in: El Oualkadi, A., Choubani, F., El Moussati, A. (Eds.), Proceedings of the Mediterranean Conference on Information & Communication Technologies 2015: MedCT 2015 Volume 2, Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 41–47.

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 Meta Gene.

Blog post

Fang, J., 2014. Mummy CT Scans Show That Pharaohs Were Misdiagnosed [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/pharaohs-were-misdiagnosed-mummy-ct-scans-show/ (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, 2010. Applying Agreed-Upon Procedures: Fiscal Year 2010 Highway Trust Fund Excise Taxes (No. GAO-11-121R). 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

Schiffbauer, L.W., 2013. The pursuit of self-esteem: A help or a hindrance in thriving in the workplace? (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

Wines, M., Bidgood, J., 2014. Waters Warm, and Cod Catch Ebbs in Maine. 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 (Gravitz, 2012).
This sentence cites two references (Gravitz, 2012; Zhou and Chen, 2014).

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

Two authors: (Zhou and Chen, 2014)
Three or more authors: (Phillips et al., 2006)

About the journal

Full journal title	Meta Gene
Abbreviation	Meta Gene
ISSN (print)	2214-5400
Scope	Genetics Genetics(clinical)