How to format your references using the Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution citation style

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

Savage, N., 2012. Materials science: Super carbon. Nature 483, S30-1.

A journal article with 2 authors

Stroebel, D., Paoletti, P., 2014. Neuroscience: A structure to remember. Nature 511, 162–163.

A journal article with 3 authors

Merritt, D., Ferrarese, L., Joseph, C.L., 2001. No supermassive black hole in M33? Science 293, 1116–1118.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Luo, E.-C., Chang, Y.-C., Sher, Y.-P., Huang, W.-Y., Chuang, L.-L., Chiu, Y.-C., Tsai, M.-H., Chuang, E.Y., Lai, L.-C., 2014. MicroRNA-769-3p down-regulates NDRG1 and enhances apoptosis in MCF-7 cells during reoxygenation. Sci. Rep. 4, 5908.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Elias, H.-G., 2009. Macromolecules. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany.

An edited book

Tymieniecka, A.-T. (Ed.), 2005. Human Creation between Reality and Illusion, Analecta Husserliana, The Yearbook of Phenomenological Research. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.

A chapter in an edited book

Hayman, P., McCarthy, M., 2013. Irrigation and Drought in a Southern Australian Climate that is Arid, Variable, and Changing, in: Schwabe, K., Albiac, J., Connor, J.D., Hassan, R.M., Meza González, L. (Eds.), Drought in Arid and Semi-Arid Regions: A Multi-Disciplinary and Cross-Country Perspective. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp. 81–99.

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 Phylogenetics and Evolution.

Blog post

Hamilton, K., 2015. Amazing Video Of Earth From Space, Set To A Pink Floyd Soundtrack [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/space/view-earth-space-set-pink-floyd-soundtrack/ (accessed 10.30.18).

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, 1998. HUD Information Systems: Improved Management Practices Needed to Control Integration Cost and Schedule (No. AIMD-99-25). 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

Shan, J., 2014. A Theoretical Investigation of Radial Lateral Wells with Shockwave Completion in Shale Gas Reservoirs (Doctoral dissertation). University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA.

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

Davey, M., Walsh, M.W., 2014. One Judge to Decide the Future of Detroit. New York Times A9.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Savage, 2012).
This sentence cites two references (Savage, 2012; Stroebel and Paoletti, 2014).

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

Two authors: (Stroebel and Paoletti, 2014)
Three or more authors: (Luo et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution
Abbreviation	Mol. Phylogenet. Evol.
ISSN (print)	1055-7903
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Genetics Molecular Biology