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

White NJ. 2008. Qinghaosu (artemisinin): the price of success. Science 320:330–334.

A journal article with 2 authors

Grumbine RE, Pandit MK. 2013. Ecology. Threats from India’s Himalaya dams. Science 339:36–37.

A journal article with 3 authors

Abel T, Bryan GL, Norman ML. 2002. The formation of the first star in the Universe. Science 295:93–98.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Zhou PY, Dou XM, Wu XF, Ding K, Li MF, Ni HQ, Niu ZC, Jiang DS, Sun BQ. 2014. Single-photon property characterization of 1.3 μm emissions from InAs/GaAs quantum dots using silicon avalanche photodiodes. Sci. Rep. 4:3633.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Marston RC. 2011. Portfolio Design. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Rewizorski M ed. 2015. The European Union and the BRICS: Complex Relations in the Era of Global Governance. Cham: Springer International Publishing

A chapter in an edited book

Denk R, Kaip M. 2013. Triebel-Lizorkin spaces and the L p -L q -setting. In: Kaip M, editor. General Parabolic Mixed Order Systems in Lp and Applications. Operator Theory: Advances and Applications. Cham: Springer International Publishing. p. 143–185.

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

O`Callaghan J. 2017. Satellite Captures Image Of “Gateway To Hell” Volcano Spewing Lava. IFLScience [Internet]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/space/satellite-captures-image-of-gateway-to-hell-volcano-spewing-lava/

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. 2000. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: Light Truck Average Fuel Economy Standard, Model Year 2002. 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

Birtler ER. 2014. Group therapy and knowledge of neuroplastic principles: The impact of health literacy on client locus of control in a therapy setting.

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

Milhollin G, Motz K. 2003. The World; The Means to Make the Poisons Came From the West. New York Times:45.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (White 2008).
This sentence cites two references (White 2008; Grumbine and Pandit 2013).

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

Two authors: (Grumbine and Pandit 2013)
Three or more authors: (Zhou et al. 2014)

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