How to format your references using the Microbial Ecology citation style

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

Kemp M (2003) Science in culture: Leonardo lifts off. Nature 421:792

A journal article with 2 authors

Takeuchi JK, Bruneau BG (2009) Directed transdifferentiation of mouse mesoderm to heart tissue by defined factors. Nature 459:708–711

A journal article with 3 authors

Pearson PD, Moje E, Greenleaf C (2010) Literacy and science: each in the service of the other. Science 328:459–463

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Kiers ET, Leakey RRB, Izac A-M, et al (2008) Ecology. Agriculture at a crossroads. Science 320:320–321

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Afoakwa EO (2016) Chocolate Science and Technology. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK

An edited book

Dörfler W (2011) Photonic Crystals: Mathematical Analysis and Numerical Approximation. Springer, Basel

A chapter in an edited book

Preissler S, Habich D, Lehner W (2011) An XML-Based Streaming Concept for Business Process Execution. In: Filipe J, Cordeiro J (eds) Enterprise Information Systems: 12th International Conference, ICEIS 2010, Funchal-Madeira, Portugal, June 8-12, 2010, Revised Selected Papers. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 60–75

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 Microbial Ecology.

Blog post

Andrew E (2015) Paralyzed Men Were Able To Move Their Legs Again After Amazing Non-Invasive Treatment. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/paralyzed-men-were-able-move-their-legs-again-after-amazing-non-invasive/. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (1993) Educational Testing: The Canadian Experience With Standards, Examinations, and Assessments. 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

Nguyen T (2012) Nail technician students’ awareness of some health effects of long-term exposure to chemicals used in nail salons and their understanding of health protection. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach

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

Saslow L (2006) Putting the Pan in Pan-American. New York Times 14LI8

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	Microbial Ecology
Abbreviation	Microb. Ecol.
ISSN (print)	0095-3628
ISSN (online)	1432-184X
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Soil Science Ecology