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

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

Jayaraman, K. S. Cutbacks cost jobs at agricultural institute. Nature 415, 949 (2002).

A journal article with 2 authors

Fujiwara, M. & Caswell, H. Demography of the endangered North Atlantic right whale. Nature 414, 537–541 (2001).

A journal article with 3 authors

Schaller, J., Weiske, A. & Berger, F. Thunderbolt in biogeochemistry: galvanic effects of lightning as another source for metal remobilization. Sci. Rep. 3, 3122 (2013).

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Mecklenbräuker, I., Kalled, S. L., Leitges, M., Mackay, F. & Tarakhovsky, A. Regulation of B-cell survival by BAFF-dependent PKCdelta-mediated nuclear signalling. Nature 431, 456–461 (2004).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bagdonavičius, V., Kruopis, J. & Nikulin, M. S. Non-Parametric Tests for Censored Data. (John Wiley & Sons, Inc, Hoboken, NJ, 2011).

An edited book

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy: Innovative Applications. (Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2016).

A chapter in an edited book

Sánchez, L., Lanza, J. & Muñoz, L. Federating Personal Networks over Heterogeneous Ad-hoc Scenarios. in Personal Wireless Communications: The 12th IFIP International Conference on Personal Wireless Communications (PWC 2007), Prague, Czech Republic, September 2007 (eds. Bestak, R., Simak, B. & Kozlowska, E.) 38–53 (Springer US, Boston, MA, 2007).

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 Microbiology.

Blog post

Hamilton, K. These Six Utopian Cities Of The Future Will Help You Re-Imagine Life On Earth. IFLScience (2016).

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. Assessment of the Explanation That Immigration and Customs Enforcement Provided for Its Subsequent Transfer from the Spectrum Relocation Fund. (2008).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Kutash, M. The Relationship Between Nurses’ Emotional Intelligence and Patient Outcomes. (University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, 2015).

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

Crow, K. If You Can’t Stand the Name, Get Out of Hell’s Kitchen. New York Times 144 (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 Reviews Microbiology
Abbreviation	Nat. Rev. Microbiol.
ISSN (print)	1740-1526
ISSN (online)	1740-1534
Scope	General Immunology and Microbiology