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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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.
Birney E. The making of ENCODE: Lessons for big-data projects. Nature 2012; 489:49–51.
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
Green MA, Fry SC. Vitamin C degradation in plant cells via enzymatic hydrolysis of 4-O-oxalyl-L-threonate. Nature 2005; 433:83–7.
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
Poss KD, Wilson LG, Keating MT. Heart regeneration in zebrafish. Science 2002; 298:2188–90.
A journal article with 11 or more authors
1.
Niessing J, Ebisch B, Schmidt KE, Niessing M, Singer W, Galuske RAW. Hemodynamic signals correlate tightly with synchronized gamma oscillations. Science 2005; 309:948–51.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
Kuus M. Geopolitics and Expertise. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons; 2013.
An edited book
1.
Mulhall JP, editor. Sexual Function in the Prostate Cancer Patient. Totowa, NJ: Humana Press; 2009.
A chapter in an edited book
1.
Eschauzier C, de Voogt P, Brauch H-J, Lange FT. Polyfluorinated Chemicals in European Surface Waters, Ground- and Drinking Waters. In: Knepper TP, Lange FT, editors. Polyfluorinated Chemicals and Transformation Products. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2012. page 73–102.

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
1.
Andrews R. These Freshly Erupted Hawaiian Lava Flows Are Nothing Short Of Spectacular. IFLScience2016;

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. Securities Regulation: Hostile Corporate Takeovers: Synopses of Thirty-Two Attempts. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1988.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1.
Marroquin Salvador MD. Hypervelocity Impact of Spherical Aluminum 2017-T4 Projectiles on Aluminum 6061-T6 Multi-Layered Sheets. 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
1.
Witz B. Judge Dismisses Familia’s Criminal Case. New York Times2016; :B8.

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 titleMobile Genetic Elements
AbbreviationMob. Genet. Elements
ISSN (print)2159-2543
ISSN (online)2159-256X
Scope

Other styles