How to format your references using the Microbiome citation style

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

1. Dance A. Health impact: Breathless. Nature. 2012;489:S2-3.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Stott PA, Kettleborough JA. Origins and estimates of uncertainty in predictions of twenty-first century temperature rise. Nature. 2002;416:723–6.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Xu X, Zheng X, You H. Exceptional dinosaur fossils show ontogenetic development of early feathers. Nature. 2010;464:1338–41.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Wasik AM, Lord M, Wang X, Zong F, Andersson P, Kimby E, et al. SOXC transcription factors in mantle cell lymphoma: the role of promoter methylation in SOX11 expression. Sci Rep. 2013;3:1400.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Aquino JA. The International Family Guide to US University Admissions. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2017.

An edited book

1. Madhavan G, Oakley B, Kun L, editors. Career Development in Bioengineering and Biotechnology: Roads Well Laid and Paths Less Traveled. New York, NY: Springer; 2008.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Andrade-Cetto J, Sanfeliu A. Unscented Transformation of Vehicle States. In: Sanfeliu A, editor. Environment Learning for Indoor Mobile Robots: A Stochastic State Estimation Approach to Simultaneous Localization and Map Building. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2006. p. 97–106.

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 Microbiome.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. Ancient Asteroid Impact Dwarfs The One That Wiped Out Dinosaurs [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2014 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/ancient-asteroid-impact-dwarfs-one-wiped-out-dinosaurs/

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

1. Government Accountability Office. Highlights of a Forum: Health Care 20 Years From Now--Taking Steps Today to Meet Tomorrow’s Challenges. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2007 Sep. Report No.: GAO-07-1155SP.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Mazza CA. The Influence of Meteorological Parameters on Rainfall and Severe Weather in Pinellas County, FL [Doctoral dissertation]. [Tampa, FL]: University of South Florida; 2011.

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

1. Marchese J. ‘I Just Love What I’m Doing.’ New York Times. 2016 Dec 14;AR20.

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	Microbiome
Abbreviation	Microbiome
ISSN (online)	2049-2618
Scope

Research and Writing Guides