How to format your references using the Molecular Biotechnology citation style

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

O’Reilly, T. (2011). Steve Jobs (1955-2011). Nature, 479(7371), 42.

A journal article with 2 authors

Joron, M., & Brakefield, P. M. (2003). Captivity masks inbreeding effects on male mating success in butterflies. Nature, 424(6945), 191–194.

A journal article with 3 authors

McDonald, J. J., Teder-Sälejärvi, W. A., & Ward, L. M. (2001). Multisensory integration and crossmodal attention effects in the human brain. Science (New York, N.Y.), 292(5523), 1791.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Brooks, B. A., Foster, J., Sandwell, D., Wolfe, C. J., Okubo, P., Poland, M., & Myer, D. (2008). Magmatically triggered slow slip at Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii. Science (New York, N.Y.), 321(5893), 1177.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Lee, Y. S. (2011). Self-Assembly and Nanotechnology Systems. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Coventry, B. J. (Ed.). (2014). Peripheral, Head and Neck Surgery. London: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Aronson, T., Hogan, A., O’Brien, W., Rosenblatt, R., Schwartz, L., Simon, M., & Wagner, W. (2006). Achieving Best Execution Through Market Structure Development. In R. A. Schwartz, J. A. Byrne, & A. Colaninno (Eds.), Electronic vs. Floor Based Trading (pp. 49–66). Boston, MA: Springer US.

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 Biotechnology.

Blog post

Andrews, R. (2016, July 4). This Somersaulting Knight Proves These Warriors Were Surprisingly Agile. IFLScience. IFLScience. Retrieved October 30, 2018, from https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/this-somersaulting-knight-proves-these-warriors-were-surprisingly-agile/

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). Opportunities for Improving Management of Local Telephone Service (No. B-146864). 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

Zurheide, P. K. (2009). Hydromorphology of anomalous bright loamy soils on the mid-Atlantic coastal plain (Doctoral dissertation). University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD.

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

Vecsey, G. (2010, March 1). A Manager Who Exceeded His Own Expectations. New York Times, p. D2.

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 Biotechnology
Abbreviation	Mol. Biotechnol.
ISSN (print)	1073-6085
ISSN (online)	1559-0305
Scope	Biochemistry Biotechnology Molecular Biology Bioengineering Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology