How to format your references using the mSystems citation style

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

Kormendy J. 2000. Galactic rotation in real time. Nature 407:307, 309.

A journal article with 2 authors

van der Zwaag D, Meijer EW. 2015. SELF-ORGANIZATION. Fueling connections between chemistry and biology. Science 349:1056–1057.

A journal article with 3 authors

Ezawa M, Tanaka Y, Nagaosa N. 2013. Topological phase transition without gap closing. Sci Rep 3:2790.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Kuhara A, Okumura M, Kimata T, Tanizawa Y, Takano R, Kimura KD, Inada H, Matsumoto K, Mori I. 2008. Temperature sensing by an olfactory neuron in a circuit controlling behavior of C. elegans. Science 320:803–807.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Baker KR. 2011. Optimization Modeling with Spreadsheets. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Wu A. 2008. Granular Dynamic Theory and Its Applications. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

Argatov I, Mishuris G. 2015. Linear Transversely Isotropic Biphasic Model for Articular Cartilage Layer, p. 149–202. In Mishuris, G (ed.), Contact Mechanics of Articular Cartilage Layers: Asymptotic Models. Springer International Publishing, Cham.

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 mSystems.

Blog post

Luntz S. 2014. Galactic Umbrella’s Tale Revealed. IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/galactic-umbrellas-tale-revealed/. Retrieved 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. 1983. U.S. Preparations for an International Conference on Broadcast Satellites. RCED-83-121. 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

Kong W. 2010. The Role of MicroRNA-155 in Human Breast Cancer. Doctoral dissertation. University of South Florida, Tampa, FL.

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

Feeney K. 2006. No Sawdust, But a Real Pit. New York Times.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in parentheses:

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	mSystems
Abbreviation	mSystems
ISSN (online)	2379-5077
Scope