How to format your references using the Nature Cell Biology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Nature Cell 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

Chan, M. A. PLANETARY SCIENCE. The martian lake chronicles. Science 350, 167 (2015).

A journal article with 2 authors

Stott, P. A. & Kettleborough, J. A. Origins and estimates of uncertainty in predictions of twenty-first century temperature rise. Nature 416, 723–726 (2002).

A journal article with 3 authors

Andrews, M. R., Mitra, P. P. & deCarvalho, R. Tripling the capacity of wireless communications using electromagnetic polarization. Nature 409, 316–318 (2001).

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Okamoto, Y. K. et al. An early extrasolar planetary system revealed by planetesimal belts in beta Pictoris. Nature 431, 660–663 (2004).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Pederson, L. D. Dialectical Behavior Therapy. (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2015).

An edited book

Stochastic Analysis 2010. (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2011).

A chapter in an edited book

Pupo, J. C. P. et al. Air Space and Bronchi – II. in Learning Chest Imaging (ed. Pedrozo Pupo, J. C.) 107–133 (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2013).

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 Nature Cell Biology.

Blog post

Andrew, E. Artificial Tweezers Block HIV, Herpes And Hepatitis C. IFLScience (2015).

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. Report on Evaluation of Lapsize Computers. (1985).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Johnson, K. C. Teacher and parent perceptions of classroom experiences of African American male students in a high school alternative program. (Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA, 2013).

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

Hollander, S. Downbeat of Feet Uptown in Harlem. New York Times F6 (2002).

In-text citations

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

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	Nature Cell Biology
Abbreviation	Nat. Cell Biol.
ISSN (print)	1465-7392
ISSN (online)	1476-4679
Scope	Cell Biology