How to format your references using the Metabolites citation style

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

Meyer-Lindenberg, A. Psychology. Trust Me on This. Science 2008, 321, 778–780.

A journal article with 2 authors

Lindvall, O.; Kokaia, Z. Stem Cells for the Treatment of Neurological Disorders. Nature 2006, 441, 1094–1096.

A journal article with 3 authors

Zhao, B.S.; Meijer, G.; Schöllkopf, W. Quantum Reflection of He2 Several Nanometers above a Grating Surface. Science 2011, 331, 892–894.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Zhao, W.-W.; Liu, Z.; Shan, S.; Zhang, W.-W.; Wang, J.; Ma, Z.-Y.; Xu, J.-J.; Chen, H.-Y. Bismuthoxyiodide Nanoflakes/Titania Nanotubes Arrayed p-n Heterojunction and Its Application for Photoelectrochemical Bioanalysis. Sci. Rep. 2014, 4, 4426.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Barbaroux, P.; Attour, A.; Schenk, E. Knowledge Management and Innovation; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, 2016; ISBN 9781119330134.

An edited book

Agricultural Medicine: A Practical Guide; Lessenger, J.E., Ed.; Springer: New York, NY, 2006; ISBN 9780387254258.

A chapter in an edited book

Sanyal, R. The Networkless Network. In Wireless World in 2050 and Beyond: A Window into the Future!; Prasad, R., Dixit, S., Eds.; Springer Series in Wireless Technology; Springer International Publishing: Cham, 2016; pp. 49–61 ISBN 9783319421407.

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 Metabolites.

Blog post

Carpineti, A. World’s Biggest X-Ray Laser Shines Its First Light Available online: https://www.iflscience.com/technology/worlds-biggest-xray-laser-shines-its-first-light/ (accessed on 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 Untangling the Stafford Student Loan Program; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1992;

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

O’Neil, D.M. Climate Frequencies of the Early Holocene from Foy Lake, Montana. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach: Long Beach, CA, 2013.

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

Kishkovsky, S. Woodstock on the Volga: Protest Ages Into Singalong. New York Times 2000, E2.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

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	Metabolites
Abbreviation	Metabolites
ISSN (online)	2218-1989
Scope	Biochemistry Molecular Biology Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism