How to format your references using the Microbiology Spectrum citation style

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

Willems J. 2003. Bringing down the barriers. Nature 422:470.

A journal article with 2 authors

Knust E, Bossinger O. 2002. Composition and formation of intercellular junctions in epithelial cells. Science 298:1955–1959.

A journal article with 3 authors

Tria F, Pompei S, Loreto V. 2013. Dynamically correlated mutations drive human Influenza A evolution. Sci Rep 3:2705.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Narayanan K, Yen SK, Dou Q, Padmanabhan P, Sudhaharan T, Ahmed S, Ying JY, Selvan ST. 2013. Mimicking cellular transport mechanism in stem cells through endosomal escape of new peptide-coated quantum dots. Sci Rep 3:2184.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Dvorak R, Lhotka C. 2013. Celestial Dynamics. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany.

An edited book

2013. International Handbook of War, Torture, and Terrorism. Springer, New York, NY.

A chapter in an edited book

Fortunati L, Manganelli AM, Law P-L, Yang S. 2012. The “Mobile” Face of Contemporary China, p. 53–65. In Law, P-L (ed.), New Connectivities in China: Virtual, Actual and Local Interactions. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.

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 Microbiology Spectrum.

Blog post

Andrew E. 2015. What Is Insomnia And What Can You Do About It? IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/what-insomnia-and-what-can-you-do-about-it/. Retrieved 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. 2006. Homeland Security: Progress Continues, but Challenges Remain on Department’s Management of Information Technology. GAO-06-598T. 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

Koons LM. 2013. An outreach program for homeless individuals: A grant proposal. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA.

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

Healy J, Schwartz J. 2016. U.S. Suspends Pipeline Work in Tribes’ Path. New York Times.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in parentheses:

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	Microbiology Spectrum
Abbreviation	Microbiol. Spectr.
ISSN (online)	2165-0497
Scope	Cell Biology Genetics Physiology Ecology General Immunology and Microbiology Infectious Diseases Microbiology (medical)