How to format your references using the Molecular and Cellular Biology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB). 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 reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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

Gerlt JA. 2007. Obituary: Frank H. Westheimer (1912-2007). Nature 447:543.

A journal article with 2 authors

Bose SK, Marder TB. 2015. ORGANIC CATALYSIS. A leap ahead for activating C-H bonds. Science 349:473–474.

A journal article with 3 authors

Petersen-Mahrt SK, Harris RS, Neuberger MS. 2002. AID mutates E. coli suggesting a DNA deamination mechanism for antibody diversification. Nature 418:99–103.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Stimpert AK, DeRuiter SL, Southall BL, Moretti DJ, Falcone EA, Goldbogen JA, Friedlaender A, Schorr GS, Calambokidis J. 2014. Acoustic and foraging behavior of a Baird’s beaked whale, Berardius bairdii, exposed to simulated sonar. Sci Rep 4:7031.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Tebbani S, Lopes F, Filali R, Dumur D, Pareau D. 2014. CO 2 Biofixation by Microalgae. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

2009. Programming Languages and Systems: 7th Asian Symposium, APLAS 2009, Seoul, Korea, December 14-16, 2009. Proceedings. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

Zitt M. 2009. Sputum Tests and Exhaled NO in the Diagnosis and Monitoring of Asthma, p. 81–100. In Pawankar, R, Holgate, ST, Rosenwasser, LJ (eds.), Allergy Frontiers: Diagnosis and Health Economics. Springer Japan, Tokyo.

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 Molecular and Cellular Biology.

Blog post

Andrew E. 2014. Anthrax Toxin Could Be Used To Deliver Cancer Drugs. IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/anthrax-toxin-could-be-used-deliver-cancer-drugs/. Retrieved 30 October 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. 1977. Guide for Evaluating Automated Systems. 095106. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Ahmadi SA. 2009. Synergistic interplay between math search and handwritten mathematical notation recognition. Doctoral dissertation. George Washington University, Washington, DC.

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

Koblin J. 2017. Elena Ferrante Series Is Coming to HBO. New York Times.

In-text citations

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

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	Molecular and Cellular Biology
Abbreviation	Mol. Cell. Biol.
ISSN (print)	0270-7306
ISSN (online)	1098-5549
Scope	Cell Biology Molecular Biology