How to format your references using the Molecular Cell citation style

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

Krause, D.W. (2001). Fossil molar from a Madagascan marsupial. Nature 412, 497–498.

A journal article with 2 authors

Roll-Mecak, A., and Vale, R.D. (2008). Structural basis of microtubule severing by the hereditary spastic paraplegia protein spastin. Nature 451, 363–367.

A journal article with 3 authors

Catling, D.C., Zahnle, K.J., and McKay, C. (2001). Biogenic methane, hydrogen escape, and the irreversible oxidation of early Earth. Science 293, 839–843.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Tezcan, F.A., Kaiser, J.T., Mustafi, D., Walton, M.Y., Howard, J.B., and Rees, D.C. (2005). Nitrogenase complexes: multiple docking sites for a nucleotide switch protein. Science 309, 1377–1380.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Center for Chemical Process Safety (1994). Tools for Making Acute Risk Decisions (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.).

An edited book

Lewis, J.R. (2009). AdvancED CSS M. Moscovitz, ed. (Apress).

A chapter in an edited book

Mulser, P., and Bauer, D. (2010). The Ponderomotive Force and Nonresonant Effects. In High Power Laser-Matter Interaction Springer Tracts in Modern Physics., D. Bauer, ed. (Springer), pp. 193–227.

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 Cell.

Blog post

Carpineti, C. (2017). Python Bites Off More Than It Can Chew, And Vomits Up Entire Deer. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/python-bites-off-more-than-it-can-chew-and-vomits-up-entire-deer/.

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 (1999). Results Act: Using Agency Performance Plans to Oversee Early Childhood Programs (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

Casco, D. (2014). Consonance: An inter play of music and design to evoke curiosity and awareness of our musical identity.

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

Walsh, M.W., and Cooper, M. (2012). Gloomy Forecast for States, Even if Economy Rebounds. New York Times, A1.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

This sentence cites one reference ².
This sentence cites two references ^2,4.
This sentence cites four references ^2,4,6,8.

About the journal

Full journal title	Molecular Cell
Abbreviation	Mol. Cell
ISSN (print)	1097-2765
ISSN (online)	1097-4164
Scope	Cell Biology Molecular Biology