How to format your references using the Molecular Systems Biology citation style

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

Tranvik L (2014) Biogeochemistry. Carbon cycling in the Arctic. Science 345: 870

A journal article with 2 authors

Weller E & Cai W (2014) Meridional variability of atmospheric convection associated with the Indian Ocean Dipole Mode. Sci Rep 4: 3590

A journal article with 3 authors

Yeung LY, Ash JL & Young ED (2015) Isotope geochemistry. Biological signatures in clumped isotopes of O₂. Science 348: 431–434

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Mount AS, Wheeler AP, Paradkar RP & Snider D (2004) Hemocyte-mediated shell mineralization in the eastern oyster. Science 304: 297–300

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Basener WF (2006) Topology and Its Applications Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Rao G ed. (2009) Optical Sensor Systems in Biotechnology Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer

A chapter in an edited book

Abbott AG, Arús P & Scorza R (2007) Peach. In Fruits and Nuts, Kole C (ed) pp 137–156. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer

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 Systems Biology.

Blog post

Davis J (2016) Pinching Figs Could Help Explain The Origin Of Our Fine Motor Skills. 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 (1999) Airport Financing: Smaller Airports Face Future Funding Shortfalls Washington, DC: 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

Al-Alawadhi F (2014) Oral History of Women Educators in Kuwait: A Comparative Model of Care Ethics Between Noddings and Al-Ghazali.

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

Schwartz J (2016) Measure in Florida That Claims to Support Solar Power Could Discourage It. New York Times: A17

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Tranvik, 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Tranvik, 2014; Weller & Cai, 2014).

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

Two authors: (Weller & Cai, 2014)
Three or more authors: (Mount et al, 2004)

About the journal

Full journal title	Molecular Systems Biology
Abbreviation	Mol. Syst. Biol.
ISSN (online)	1744-4292
Scope	General Agricultural and Biological Sciences General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology Computational Theory and Mathematics Information Systems General Immunology and Microbiology Applied Mathematics