How to format your references using the Plant Biotechnology Journal citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Plant Biotechnology Journal (PBJ). 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

Schrag, D.P. (2007) Preparing to capture carbon. Science, 315, 812–813.

A journal article with 2 authors

Neels, J.G. and Olefsky, J.M. (2006) Cell signaling. A new way to burn fat. Science, 312, 1756–1758.

A journal article with 3 authors

Acuna, D.E., Allesina, S., and Kording, K.P. (2012) Future impact: Predicting scientific success. Nature, 489, 201–202.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Reimann, J., Schlauderer, S., Schmid, C.P., Langer, F., Baierl, S., Kokh, K.A., et al. (2018) Subcycle observation of lightwave-driven Dirac currents in a topological surface band. Nature, 562, 396–400.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Yeakley, C.L. and Fiebrich, J.D. (2015) Collaborative Process Improvement. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Grimm, B., Porra, R.J., Rüdiger, W., and Scheer, H. eds. (2006) Chlorophylls and Bacteriochlorophylls: Biochemistry, Biophysics, Functions and Applications. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

A chapter in an edited book

Dikshit, K.R. and Dikshit, J.K. (2014) The Drainage System of North-East India. In: North-East India: Land, People and Economy Advances in Asian Human-Environmental Research (Dikshit,J.K., ed) , pp. 127–147. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

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 Plant Biotechnology Journal.

Blog post

Davis, J. (2015) What It’s Like To Live In A Town That Needs Its Own Polar Bear Jail. IFLScience.

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 (2012) Transportation-Disadvantaged Populations: Federal Coordination Efforts Could Be Further Strengthened. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Lake, A.D. (2013) Hepatic stress response mechanisms in progressive human nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

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

Antilla, S. (2015) 69 Red Flags Catch Up to a Broker. New York Times, B1.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Schrag, 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Neels and Olefsky, 2006; Schrag, 2007).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Neels and Olefsky, 2006)
Three or more authors: (Reimann et al., 2018)

About the journal

Full journal title	Plant Biotechnology Journal
Abbreviation	Plant Biotechnol. J.
ISSN (print)	1467-7644
ISSN (online)	1467-7652
Scope	Agronomy and Crop Science Plant Science Biotechnology