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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Molecular and Cellular Pediatrics. 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

Hand E (2008) Plumes of methane identified on Mars. Nature 455:1018

A journal article with 2 authors

Tobias SM, Cattaneo F (2013) Shear-driven dynamo waves at high magnetic Reynolds number. Nature 497:463–465

A journal article with 3 authors

Chen S-K, Badea TC, Hattar S (2011) Photoentrainment and pupillary light reflex are mediated by distinct populations of ipRGCs. Nature 476:92–95

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Bankovich AJ, Raunser S, Juo ZS, et al (2007) Structural insight into pre-B cell receptor function. Science 316:291–294

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bonilla LL, Teitsworth SW (2010) Nonlinear Wave Methods for Charge Transport. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany

An edited book

Bui TD, Ho TV, Ha QT (2008) Intelligent Agents and Multi-Agent Systems: 11th Pacific Rim International Conference on Multi-Agents, PRIMA 2008, Hanoi, Vietnam, December 15-16, 2008. Proceedings. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

A chapter in an edited book

Savoia C, Schiffrin EL (2015) Vascular Changes in the Microcirculation: Arterial Remodeling and Capillary Rarefaction. In: Berbari A, Mancia G (eds) Arterial Disorders: Definition, Clinical Manifestations, Mechanisms and Therapeutic Approaches. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 69–79

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 Pediatrics.

Blog post

Carpineti A (2016) Remains Of Ancient Star Cluster Found In Milky Way’s Heart. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/remains-of-ancient-star-cluster-found-in-milky-ways-heart/. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (1973) Management of the Overseas Dependents School System. 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

Bennett CA (2012) The stigma of mental illness as experienced by mental health professionals as patients: A phenomenological study. Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute

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

Stewart S (2014) Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Actor of Authority, Dies at 95. New York Times A27

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	Molecular and Cellular Pediatrics
Abbreviation	Mol. Cell. Pediatr.
ISSN (online)	2194-7791
Scope

Research and Writing Guides