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

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

Hayashi S. 2014. Biophysics. Silencing neurons with light. Science 344:369–370.

A journal article with 2 authors

Jung H, Karato S. 2001. Water-induced fabric transitions in olivine. Science 293:1460–1463.

A journal article with 3 authors

Nielsen LK, Bjørnholm T, Mouritsen OG. 2000. Fluctuations caught in the act. Nature 404:352.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Stagg SM, Gürkan C, Fowler DM, LaPointe P, Foss TR, Potter CS, Carragher B, Balch WE. 2006. Structure of the Sec13/31 COPII coat cage. Nature 439:234–238.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Zwecher MJ. 2010. Retirement Portfolios. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Murphy MP, Dukelow F eds. 2016. The Irish Welfare State in the Twenty-First Century: Challenges and Change. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK

A chapter in an edited book

From PJ, Gravdahl JT, Pettersen KY. 2014. Kinematics of Vehicle-Manipulator Systems. In: Gravdahl JT, Pettersen KY, editors. Vehicle-Manipulator Systems: Modeling for Simulation, Analysis, and Control. Advances in Industrial Control. London: Springer. p. 169–189.

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 Biology and Evolution.

Blog post

Carpineti A. 2017. How Antarctica Became Frozen. IFLScience [Internet]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/how-antarctica-became-frozen/

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. 2014. Education and Workforce Data: Challenges in Matching Student and Worker Information Raise Concerns about Longitudinal Data Systems. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Manuel DG. 2019. Integrate or Innovate: Controlling Schedule Risk in Major Defense Acquisition Programs.

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

Pilon M. 2012. Gold to British in Jumpoff With Dutch. New York Times:B10.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Hayashi 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Jung and Karato S 2001; Hayashi 2014).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Jung and Karato S 2001)
Three or more authors: (Stagg et al. 2006)

About the journal

Full journal title	Molecular Biology and Evolution
Abbreviation	Mol. Biol. Evol.
ISSN (print)	0737-4038
ISSN (online)	1537-1719
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Genetics Molecular Biology