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

Elert, E., 2014. Aetiology: Searching for schizophrenia’s roots. Nature 508, S2-3.

A journal article with 2 authors

Huybers, P., Curry, W., 2006. Links between annual, Milankovitch and continuum temperature variability. Nature 441, 329–332.

A journal article with 3 authors

Daviter, T., Murphy, F.V., 4th, Ramakrishnan, V., 2005. Molecular biology. A renewed focus on transfer RNA. Science 308, 1123–1124.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Kasahara, M., Kagawa, T., Oikawa, K., Suetsugu, N., Miyao, M., Wada, M., 2002. Chloroplast avoidance movement reduces photodamage in plants. Nature 420, 829–832.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Niven, P.R., 2014. Balanced Scorecard Evolution. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Lajtha, A., Youdim, M.B.H., Riederer, P., Mandel, S.A., Battistin, L. (Eds.), 2007. Handbook of Neurochemistry and Molecular Neurobiology: Degenerative Diseases of the Nervous System. Springer US, Boston, MA.

A chapter in an edited book

Reskin, B.F., 2005. Including Mechanisms in our Models of Ascriptive Inequality, in: Nielsen, L.B., Nelson, R.L. (Eds.), Handbook of Employment Discrimination Research: Rights and Realities. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp. 75–97.

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

Andrew, D., 2015. Is Masturbation Good For You? [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/masturbating-good-you/ (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, 2008. Health Information Technology: HHS Has Taken Important Steps to Address Privacy Principles and Challenges, Although More Work Remains (No. GAO-08-1138). 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

Reese, S.R., 2012. Transitioning to the oboe: Methods and resources to assist in switching to the oboe from other woodwind instruments (Doctoral dissertation). California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA.

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

Vecsey, G., 2011. Redemption Is in Burress’s Sizable Reach. New York Times D3.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Elert, 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Elert, 2014; Huybers and Curry, 2006).

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

Two authors: (Huybers and Curry, 2006)
Three or more authors: (Kasahara et al., 2002)

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