How to format your references using the Microbial Genomics citation style

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

Chicurel M. Genome analysis at your fingertips. Nature 2002;419:751, 753.

A journal article with 2 authors

Raymo ME, Mitrovica JX. Collapse of polar ice sheets during the stage 11 interglacial. Nature 2012;483:453–456.

A journal article with 3 authors

Tuthill PG, Monnier JD, Danchi WC. A dusty torus around the luminous young star LkH alpha101. Nature 2001;409:1012–1014.

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Banavar JR, Damuth J, Maritan A, Rinaldo A. Physiology: Allometric cascades. Nature 2003;421:713–4; discussion 714.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Doyle JF. Modern Experimental Stress Analysis. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2005.

An edited book

Clarkson DB. S+ Functional Data Analysis: User’s Manual for Windows®. New York, NY: Springer; 2005.

A chapter in an edited book

Bharadwaj U, Kasembeli MM, Tweardy DJ. STAT3 Inhibitors in Cancer: A Comprehensive Update. In: Ward AC (editor). STAT Inhibitors in Cancer. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. pp. 95–161.

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 Genomics.

Blog post

Andrew D. Five Reasons Why Cutting NASA’s Climate Research Would Be A Colossal Mistake. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/five-reasons-why-cutting-nasas-climate-research-would-be-a-colossal-mistake/ (2016, accessed 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. Space Shuttle: NASA’s Major Changes to Flight Hardware. NSIAD-88-173FS; Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 27 June 1988.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Klepper EM. Andragogy and Workplace Relationships: A Mixed-Methods Study Exploring Employees’ Perceptions of Their Relationships with Their Supervisors. Doctoral Dissertation; Lindenwood University; 2017.

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

Greenhouse L. Supreme Court Reconsiders Pivotal Louisiana Case on Racial Selection of Juries. New York Times, 5 December 2007, p. A22.

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 Genomics
Abbreviation	Microb. Genom.
ISSN (online)	2057-5858
Scope