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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
1.
O’Reilly, T. (2011). Steve Jobs (1955-2011). Nature, 479(7371), 42.
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
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
1.
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
1.
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
1.
Lee, Y. S. (2011). Self-Assembly and Nanotechnology Systems. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
1.
Coventry, B. J. (Ed.). (2014). Peripheral, Head and Neck Surgery. London: Springer.
A chapter in an edited book
1.
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
1.
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
1.
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
1.
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
1.
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 titleMolecular Biotechnology
AbbreviationMol. Biotechnol.
ISSN (print)1073-6085
ISSN (online)1559-0305
ScopeBiochemistry
Biotechnology
Molecular Biology
Bioengineering
Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology

Other styles