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

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

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
1.
Ryan, M. J. Replication in field biology: the case of the frog-eating bat. Science 334, 1229–1230 (2011).
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
Tomita, M. & Murakami, M. High-temperature superconductor bulk magnets that can trap magnetic fields of over 17 tesla at 29 K. Nature 421, 517–520 (2003).
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
Hung, R.-J., Pak, C. W. & Terman, J. R. Direct redox regulation of F-actin assembly and disassembly by Mical. Science 334, 1710–1713 (2011).
A journal article with 6 or more authors
1.
Kang, H. J., Coulibaly, F., Clow, F., Proft, T. & Baker, E. N. Stabilizing isopeptide bonds revealed in gram-positive bacterial pilus structure. Science 318, 1625–1628 (2007).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
Rajagopal, R. Sustainable Value Creation in the Fine and Speciality Chemicals Industry. (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2014).
An edited book
1.
Psycho-Oncology. vol. 197 (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2014).
A chapter in an edited book
1.
Marek, V. W. & Truszczynski, M. Rough Sets and Approximation Schemes. in Rough Sets and Intelligent Systems Paradigms: International Conference, RSEISP 2007, Warsaw, Poland, June 28-30, 2007. Proceedings (eds. Kryszkiewicz, M., Peters, J. F., Rybinski, H. & Skowron, A.) 22–28 (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 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 Molecular Cell Biology.

Blog post
1.
Andrew, E. Why Single Blood Markers For Disease Will Become A Thing Of The Past. IFLScience https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/why-single-blood-markers-disease-will-become-thing-past/ (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
1.
Government Accountability Office. The Impact of Budget Cuts on Three Directorates of the National Science Foundation. (1982).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1.
Li, H. Improvement of Compressive Strength of Oil Well Cement by Agitation. (University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA, 2017).

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
1.
Bordewich, F. M. Debate Prep. New York Times BR21 (2017).

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 titleNature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology
AbbreviationNat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol.
ISSN (print)1471-0072
ISSN (online)1471-0080
ScopeCell Biology
Molecular Biology

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