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

Corma, A., 2009. Materials chemistry: Catalysts made thinner. Nature 461, 182–183.

A journal article with 2 authors

Lewis, A., Tomlinson, I., 2012. Cancer. The utility of mouse models in post-GWAS research. Science 338, 1301–1302.

A journal article with 3 authors

Schreiber, R.D., Old, L.J., Smyth, M.J., 2011. Cancer immunoediting: integrating immunity’s roles in cancer suppression and promotion. Science 331, 1565–1570.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Farhan, A., Gulati, J., Groβe-Wilde, E., Vogel, H., Hansson, B.S., Knaden, M., 2013. The CCHamide 1 receptor modulates sensory perception and olfactory behavior in starved Drosophila. Sci. Rep. 3, 2765.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Simmendinger, H., 2013. HOAI 2013: Praxisleitfaden für Ingenieure und Architekten. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH, D-69451 Weinheim, Germany.

An edited book

Muralikrishnan, B., 2009. Computational Surface and Roundness Metrology. Springer, London.

A chapter in an edited book

Hurst, C.S., Eby, L.T., 2012. Mentoring in Organizations: Mentor or Tormentor?, in: Reilly, N.P., Sirgy, M.J., Gorman, C.A. (Eds.), Work and Quality of Life: Ethical Practices in Organizations. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp. 81–94.

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

Andrew, E., 2015. These Simulations Let You Visualize What It Would Look Like If The The Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Hit Your City [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/physics/these-simulations-let-you-visualize-effects-hiroshima-atomic-bomb-todays-cities/ (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, 2017. Surface Transportation: A Comprehensive Plan Could Facilitate Implementation of a National Performance Management Approach (No. GAO-17-638). 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

Pigott, C., 2016. School Resource Officers and the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Discovering Trends of Expulsions in Public Schools (Doctoral dissertation). University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA.

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

Sophia Kishkovsky; Compiled by, 2005. Arts, Briefly; Paintings Returned to Russia. New York Times E2.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Corma, 2009).
This sentence cites two references (Corma, 2009; Lewis and Tomlinson, 2012).

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

Two authors: (Lewis and Tomlinson, 2012)
Three or more authors: (Farhan et al., 2013)

About the journal

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

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