How to format your references using the Microbiome Research Reports citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Microbiome Research Reports (MRR). 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

Novick RP. Medicine. Combating impervious bugs. Science 2008;319:910–1. [PMID: 18276877]

A journal article with 2 authors

Pera M, Trounson A. Cloning debate: Stem-cell researchers must stay engaged. Nature 2013;498:159–61. [PMID: 23765475]

A journal article with 3 authors

Caron J-B, Morris SC, Cameron CB. Tubicolous enteropneusts from the Cambrian period. Nature 2013;495:503–6. [PMID: 23485974]

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Chelton DB, Schlax MG, Freilich MH, Milliff RF. Satellite measurements reveal persistent small-scale features in ocean winds. Science 2004;303:978–83. [PMID: 14726595]

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Center for Chemical Process Safety. Guidelines for Use of Vapor Cloud Dispersion Models. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 1996.

An edited book

Silverman H, Ruggles DF, editors. Cultural Heritage and Human Rights. New York, NY: Springer; 2007.

A chapter in an edited book

Al-Sharif R, Guyeux C, Fadil YA, Makhoul A, Jaber A. On the Usefulness of Information Hiding Techniques for Wireless Sensor Networks Security. In: Mitton N, Gallais A, Kantarci ME, Papavassiliou S, editors. Ad Hoc Networks: 6th International ICST Conference, ADHOCNETS 2014, Rhodes, Greece, August 18-19, 2014, Revised Selected Papers. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014. pp. 51–62.

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 Research Reports.

Blog post

Fang J. Packrats Dine on Poison After Fecal Transplant. IFLScience 2014. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/packrats-dine-poison-after-fecal-transplant/. [Last 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. Job Corps: High Costs and Mixed Results Raise Questions About Program’s Effectiveness. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1995.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Thirumal VM. Production of Microbial Lipids from Lipomyces starkeyi. Doctoral dissertation. University of Louisiana; 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. Advice to New Chief From the Lesser of Two Equals: Call Me Nino. New York Times 2005;:A20.

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 Research Reports
ISSN (print)	2771-5965
Scope