How to format your references using the Molecular Microbiology citation style

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

Koenig, R. (2000) ACADEMIC FREEDOM: Political Scientist Becomes Cause Celebre. Science 289: 846b–7b.

A journal article with 2 authors

Hagoort, P., and Levelt, W.J.M. (2009) Neuroscience. The speaking brain. Science 326: 372–373.

A journal article with 3 authors

Tahir, M., MacKinnon, A., and Schwingenschlögl, U. (2014) Novel spectral features of nanoelectromechanical systems. Sci Rep 4: 4035.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Prodan, E., Radloff, C., Halas, N.J., and Nordlander, P. (2003) A hybridization model for the plasmon response of complex nanostructures. Science 302: 419–422.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Neupert, R. (2011) French Animation History. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK.

An edited book

Brown, I.D., and Poeppelmeier, K.R. (eds) (2014) Bond Valences. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

Fleenor, B.S., and Berrones, A.J. (2015) Interventions to Destiffen Arteries. In Arterial Stiffness: Implications and Interventions. Berrones, A.J. (ed.). Springer International Publishing, Cham. pp. 43–57.

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 Microbiology.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2015) Nearby Star Has Three Planets Slightly Larger Than Earth, With One In Habitable Zone. IFLScience .

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 (1996) Transportation Infrastructure: Central Artery/Tunnel Project Faces Financial Uncertainties. 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

Ekstrom, J.E. (2009) Factors influencing retention in a residential treatment program. .

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

Kanter, J., and Povoledo, E. (2017) E.U. Leaders Project Unity, Despite Concerns of Failure. New York Times A6.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Koenig, 2000).
This sentence cites two references (Koenig, 2000; Hagoort and Levelt, 2009).

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

Two authors: (Hagoort and Levelt, 2009)
Three or more authors: (Prodan et al., 2003)

About the journal

Full journal title	Molecular Microbiology
Abbreviation	Mol. Microbiol.
ISSN (print)	0950-382X
ISSN (online)	1365-2958
Scope	Molecular Biology Microbiology