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

Gong P. Cultural history holds back Chinese research. Nature 2012; 481:411.

A journal article with 2 authors

Bozic I, Nowak MA. Cancer. Unwanted evolution. Science 2013; 342:938–9.

A journal article with 3 authors

Allard P, Burton M, Muré F. Spectroscopic evidence for a lava fountain driven by previously accumulated magmatic gas. Nature 2005; 433:407–10.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Xu J, Gao Q, Zhang Y, Tan Y, Tian W, Zhu L, Jiang L. Preparing two-dimensional microporous carbon from Pistachio nutshell with high areal capacitance as supercapacitor materials. Sci Rep 2014; 4:5545.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Snopek L. The Complete Guide to Portfolio Construction and Management. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.; 2012.

An edited book

Verstovsek S, Tefferi A, editors. Myeloproliferative Neoplasms: Biology and Therapy. Totowa, NJ: Humana Press; 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

Kutikhin A, Brusina E, Yuzhalin AE. The Role of Enteroviruses, Parvovirus B19, Respiratory Syncytial Virus, and Measles Virus in Atherosclerosis and Related Diseases. In: Brusina E, Yuzhalin AE, editors. Viruses and Atherosclerosis. New York, NY: Springer; 2013. page 35–47.

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

Andrew E. Scientists Strap Cameras On Squid To Observe Their Flashy Behavior [Internet]. IFLScience2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]; Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/scientists-strap-cameras-squid-observe-their-flashy-behavior/

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. District of Columbia: D.C. Public Schools Inappropriately Used Gas Utility Contract for Renovations. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2001.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Jones DM. Educational paradigm shift: Emergence of the virtual classroom. 2010;

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

Sophia Kishkovsky; Compiled by. Arts, Briefly; $5 Million Theft at the Hermitage. New York Times2006; :E2.

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

Research and Writing Guides