How to format your references using the Molecular Breeding citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Molecular Breeding. 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
Levi MA (2004) Dreaming of clean nukes. Nature 428:892
A journal article with 2 authors
Long JL, Chhetri DK (2015) Tissue engineering. Restoring voice. Science 350:908–909
A journal article with 3 authors
Reinisch KM, Nibert ML, Harrison SC (2000) Structure of the reovirus core at 3.6 A resolution. Nature 404:960–967
A journal article with 5 or more authors
Guo X-G, Ding J, Xu H, et al (2014) Comprehensive assessment of the association of WNK4 polymorphisms with hypertension: evidence from a meta-analysis. Sci Rep 4:6507

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Bertocchi M, Schwartz SL, Ziemba WT (2010) Optimizing the Aging, Retirement, and Pensions Dilemma. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ
An edited book
Sakai Y, Vassilicos C (eds) (2016) Fractal Flow Design: How to Design Bespoke Turbulence and Why. Springer International Publishing, Cham
A chapter in an edited book
Mamalis AG (2005) Advanced Manufacturing of Advanced Materials. In: Lee J, Novikov N, Turkevich V (eds) Innovative Superhard Materials and Sustainable Coatings for Advanced Manufacturing: Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Innovative Superhard Materials and Sustainable Coatings Kiev, Ukraine 12–15 May 2004. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp 63–80

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 Breeding.

Blog post
Andrew E (2015) Philae Lander Is Missing. In: IFLScience. 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 (1992) Space Station: Status of Financial Reserves. 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
Graeter CJ (2012) Longitudinal Study of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Subjects in the American Clinical Trial of Enzyme Potentiated Desensitization. Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati

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
Greenhouse L (2005) Supreme Court to Determine Fate of Business Tax Credits. New York Times C3

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Levi 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Levi 2004; Long and Chhetri 2015).

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

  • Two authors: (Long and Chhetri 2015)
  • Three or more authors: (Guo et al. 2014)

About the journal

Full journal titleMolecular Breeding
AbbreviationMol. Breed.
ISSN (print)1380-3743
ISSN (online)1572-9788
ScopeAgronomy and Crop Science
Plant Science
Biotechnology
Genetics
Molecular Biology

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