How to format your references using the Molecules citation style

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

Marris, E. On High Alert. Nature 2010, 466, S2-3.

A journal article with 2 authors

Fuchs-Schündeln, N.; Schündeln, M. Political Economy. On the Endogeneity of Political Preferences: Evidence from Individual Experience with Democracy. Science 2015, 347, 1145–1148.

A journal article with 3 authors

Isaacs, F.J.; Blake, W.J.; Collins, J.J. Molecular Biology. Signal Processing in Single Cells. Science 2005, 307, 1886–1888.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

De Joussineau, C.; Soulé, J.; Martin, M.; Anguille, C.; Montcourrier, P.; Alexandre, D. Delta-Promoted Filopodia Mediate Long-Range Lateral Inhibition in Drosophila. Nature 2003, 426, 555–559.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Vagelli, A.A. The Banggai Cardinalfish; John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Chichester, UK, 2011; ISBN 9781119950387.

An edited book

Koop, R. Successfully Implementing Microsoft Dynamics^TM: By Using the Regatta® Approach for Microsoft Dynamics^TM; Muris, E., Ed.; Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2007; ISBN 9783540715924.

A chapter in an edited book

Nieman, L.K. The Diagnosis of Cushing’s Syndrome. In Cushing’s Disease; Swearingen, B., Biller, B.M.K., Eds.; Endocrine Updates; Springer US: Boston, MA, 2011; pp. 45–55 ISBN 9781461400103.

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 Molecules.

Blog post

Fang, J. People Would Rather Experience An Electric Shock Than Be Alone With Their Thoughts Available online: https://www.iflscience.com/brain/people-would-rather-experience-electric-shock-be-alone-their-thoughts/ (accessed on 30 October 2018).

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 Government Performance and Results Act: Information on FAA’s Science Activities in DOT’s Performance Report for Fiscal Year 1999, Performance Plan for FY 2001, and July 2000 Draft Strategic Plan; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 2000;

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Wrobleski, M.M. The Challenge of Teen Nutrition: An Ecological View of Socio-Cognitive Influences on Urban, African-American Adolescent Diet Quality. Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park: College Park, MD, 2010.

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

Cooper, M. National Opera Names General Director. New York Times 2017, C3.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [1].
This sentence cites two references [1,2].
This sentence cites four references [1–4].

About the journal

Full journal title	Molecules
Abbreviation	Molecules
ISSN (online)	1420-3049
Scope	Organic Chemistry