How to format your references using the Mobile Genetic Elements citation style

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

Koenig R. Profile. South Africa’s bone man: 80 and still digging into the past. Science 2005; 310:608–9.

A journal article with 2 authors

Chin L, Gray JW. Translating insights from the cancer genome into clinical practice. Nature 2008; 452:553–63.

A journal article with 3 authors

Kwak K, Cho K, Kim S. Stable bending performance of flexible organic light-emitting diodes using IZO anodes. Sci Rep 2013; 3:2787.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Fernández ÁF, Sebti S, Wei Y, Zou Z, Shi M, McMillan KL, He C, Ting T, Liu Y, Chiang W-C, et al. Disruption of the beclin 1-BCL2 autophagy regulatory complex promotes longevity in mice. Nature 2018; 558:136–40.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Chan NH. Time Series: Applications to Finance with R and S-Plus®. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2010.

An edited book

Gonçalves B, Perra N, editors. Social Phenomena: From Data Analysis to Models. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

Russo T, Brancaccio G. Oral Medication in Hyperhidrosis. In: Sito G, editor. Hyperhidrosis: Clinician’s Guide to Diagnosis and Treatment. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. page 23–6.

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 Genetic Elements.

Blog post

O`Callaghan J. What The Hell Is This Bizarre Looking “Alien” Creature? IFLScience2015;

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. Year 2000 Computing Challenge: Readiness of Key State-Administered Federal Programs. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1999.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

He W. A Comprehensive Analysis of Fracture Initiation and Propagation in Sandstones based on Micro-Level Observation and Digital Imaging Correlation. 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

Feeney K. Soul Food With a Secret. New York Times2009; :NJ9.

In-text citations

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

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 Genetic Elements
Abbreviation	Mob. Genet. Elements
ISSN (print)	2159-2543
ISSN (online)	2159-256X
Scope