How to format your references using the Nature Reviews Genetics citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Nature Reviews Genetics. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Esposito, L. Planetary science. Cassini imaging at Jupiter. Science 299, 1529–1530 (2003).

A journal article with 2 authors

Platt, M. L. & Adams, G. K. Psychology. Monkey see, monkey read. Science 336, 168–169 (2012).

A journal article with 3 authors

Warrick, D. R., Tobalske, B. W. & Powers, D. R. Aerodynamics of the hovering hummingbird. Nature 435, 1094–1097 (2005).

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Vanhollebeke, B. et al. A haptoglobin-hemoglobin receptor conveys innate immunity to Trypanosoma brucei in humans. Science 320, 677–681 (2008).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Halstead, P. Two Oxen Ahead. (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Chichester, UK, 2014).

An edited book

Abramovich, D. Enumerative Invariants in Algebraic Geometry and String Theory: Lectures given at the C.I.M.E. Summer School Held in Cetraro, Italy June 6–11, 2005. vol. 1947 (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2008).

A chapter in an edited book

Yon-Kahn, J. & Hervé, G. Living Beings, Open Systems. in Molecular and Cellular Enzymology (ed. Hervé, G.) 63–82 (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2010).

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 Reviews Genetics.

Blog post

Andrew, E. Three-Person IVF: Science Shows Ethical Questions Remain Unanswered. IFLScience https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/three-person-ivf-science-shows-ethical-questions-remain-unanswered/ (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. Research Evidence Concerning Bilingual Education. (1987).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

McCullough, J. Functional outcomes and patient satisfaction. A retrospective study to determine if these factors are correlated in a clinical setting. A project report. (California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, 2009).

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

Ruiz, R. R. Sharapova Suspension Is Cut by Nine Months. New York Times B8 (2016).

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 Reviews Genetics
Abbreviation	Nat. Rev. Genet.
ISSN (print)	1471-0056
ISSN (online)	1471-0064
Scope	Genetics Molecular Biology Genetics(clinical)