How to format your references using the Methods and Protocols citation style

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

Gauntlett, J. Physics. Brane New Worlds. Nature 2000, 404, 28–29.

A journal article with 2 authors

Blázquez, M.A.; Weigel, D. Integration of Floral Inductive Signals in Arabidopsis. Nature 2000, 404, 889–892.

A journal article with 3 authors

Melchor, R.N.; Buchwaldt, R.; Bowring, S. A Late Eocene Date for Late Triassic Bird Tracks. Nature 2013, 495, E1-2.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Tapponnier, P.; Zhiqin, X.; Roger, F.; Meyer, B.; Arnaud, N.; Wittlinger, G.; Jingsui, Y. Oblique Stepwise Rise and Growth of the Tibet Plateau. Science 2001, 294, 1671–1677.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) Supplemental Proceedings; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, 2011; ISBN 9781118062173.

An edited book

Pulmonary Dysfunction and Disease; Pokorski, M., Ed.; Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology; Springer International Publishing: Cham, 2016; Vol. 934; ISBN 9783319420097.

A chapter in an edited book

Yi, H.; Tian, X. A Study to Neuron Ensemble of Cognitive Cortex ISI Coding Represent Stimulus. In Advances in Neural Networks - ISNN 2010: 7th International Symposium on Neural Networks, ISNN 2010, Shanghai, China, June 6-9, 2010, Proceedings, Part I; Zhang, L., Lu, B.-L., Kwok, J., Eds.; Lecture Notes in Computer Science; Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2010; pp. 27–32 ISBN 9783642132773.

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 Methods and Protocols.

Blog post

Andrew, E. Stunning, Crystal-Clear Images Of Pluto – But What Do They Mean? Available online: https://www.iflscience.com/space/stunning-crystal-clear-images-pluto-what-do-they-mean/ (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 Student Loans: Selected Characteristics of Schools in Two Major Federal Loan Programs; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1997;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Dooling, S.M. Like A Unicorn in Captivity. Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park: College Park, MD, 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

Walsh, M.W. Bill Proposed to Give Regulatory Protection to Puerto Rico Mutual Fund Investors. New York Times 2015, B3.

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	Methods and Protocols
Abbreviation	Methods Protoc.
ISSN (online)	2409-9279
Scope

Research and Writing Guides