How to format your references using the Mobile DNA citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Mobile DNA. 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. Alford MH. Redistribution of energy available for ocean mixing by long-range propagation of internal waves. Nature. 2003;423:159–62.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Carter RM, Gammon P. New Zealand maritime glaciation: millennial-scale southern climate change since 3.9 Ma. Science. 2004;304:1659–62.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Ben-Shem A, Frolow F, Nelson N. Crystal structure of plant photosystem I. Nature. 2003;426:630–5.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Cao X, Wang X, Jin D, Cao Y, He D. Identifying overlapping communities as well as hubs and outliers via nonnegative matrix factorization. Sci Rep. 2013;3:2993.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Bma. Everyday Medical Ethics and Law. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2013.

An edited book

1. Stanescu L. Creating New Medical Ontologies for Image Annotation: A Case Study. Burdescu DD, Brezovan M, Mihai CG, editors. New York, NY: Springer; 2012.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Razzaque MS. FGF23, Klotho and Vitamin D Interactions: In: Kuro-o M, editor. Endocrine FGFs and Klothos. New York, NY: Springer US; 2012. p. 84–91.

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 Mobile DNA.

Blog post

1. Andrews R. Ebola Confirmed To Be Sexually Transmitted Disease [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/ebola-confirmed-be-sexually-transmitted-disease/

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. Teacher Preparation: Multiple Federal Education Offices Support Teacher Preparation for Instructing Students with Disabilities and English Language Learners, but Systematic Departmentwide Coordination Could Enhance This Assistance. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2009 Jul. Report No.: GAO-09-573.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Weaver PQ. Relationships between leadership practices of founders and successors and economic performance of select family businesses [Doctoral dissertation]. [Phoenix, AZ]: University of Phoenix; 2008.

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. Gavin J. Even at 94, Brazil’s Grande Dame of the Stage Can’t Stop Singing. New York Times. 2016 Sep 19;C6.

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	Mobile DNA
Abbreviation	Mob. DNA
ISSN (online)	1759-8753
Scope	Molecular Biology