How to format your references using the Nucleus citation style

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

Garrett WS. Cancer and the microbiota. Science 2015; 348:80–6.

A journal article with 2 authors

McLaughlin S, Murray D. Plasma membrane phosphoinositide organization by protein electrostatics. Nature 2005; 438:605–11.

A journal article with 3 authors

den Boer SPA, Baer B, Boomsma JJ. Seminal fluid mediates ejaculate competition in social insects. Science 2010; 327:1506–9.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Novikov AP, Kalmykov SN, Utsunomiya S, Ewing RC, Horreard F, Merkulov A, Clark SB, Tkachev VV, Myasoedov BF. Colloid transport of plutonium in the far-field of the Mayak Production Association, Russia. Science 2006; 314:638–41.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Rao CL, Narayanamurthy V, Simha KRY. Applied Impact Mechanics. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2016.

An edited book

Söderhäll K, editor. Invertebrate Immunity. Boston, MA: Springer US; 2010.

A chapter in an edited book

Mohnhaupt H. The Object of Interpretation: Legislation and Competing Normative Sources of Law in Europe During the 16th to 18th Centuries. In: Morigiwa Y, Stolleis M, Halperin J-L, editors. Interpretation of Law in the Age of Enlightenment: From the Rule of the King to the Rule of Law. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2011. page 61–89.

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 Nucleus.

Blog post

Fang J. E. coli Gets a Circadian Clock Transplant. IFLScience2015;

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. Stock Market Automation: Exchanges Have Increased Systems’ Capacities Since the 1987 Market Crash. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1991.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Katavic I. Corporate social responsibility and sustainable competitive advantage: A case study of the cement industry. 2014;

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

Vecsey G. The Know-Nothing Mets? There’s a Pattern Here. New York Times2011; :D4.

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	Nucleus
Abbreviation	Nucleus
ISSN (print)	1949-1034
ISSN (online)	1949-1042
Scope	Cell Biology