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

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

Agarwal VK (2000) “Diamond ceiling” for asian americans. Science 290:2075a

A journal article with 2 authors

Forterre Y, Dumais J (2011) Materials science. Generating helices in nature. Science 333:1715–1716

A journal article with 3 authors

Lacks DJ, Van Orman JA, Lesher CE (2012) Isotope fractionation in silicate melts. Nature 482:E1; discussion E1-2

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Garsin DA, Villanueva JM, Begun J, et al (2003) Long-lived C. elegans daf-2 mutants are resistant to bacterial pathogens. Science 300:1921

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Stidwill D, Fletcher R (2010) Normal Binocular Vision. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., West Sussex, UK

An edited book

Huaman ES, Sriraman B (eds) (2015) Indigenous Innovation: Universalities and Peculiarities. SensePublishers, Rotterdam

A chapter in an edited book

Kunusch C, Puleston P, Mayosky M (2012) Control-Oriented Modelling and Experimental Validation of a PEMFC Generation System. In: Puleston P, Mayosky M (eds) Sliding-Mode Control of PEM Fuel Cells. Springer, London, pp 105–128

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 Reports.

Blog post

O`Callaghan J (2015) These Two Black Holes Are On The Brink Of Merging Into One. In: IFLScience. Accessed 30 Oct 2018

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 (2016) Highlights of a Forum: Data and Analytics Innovation: Emerging Opportunities and Challenges. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Umstead HG (2017) Determining the Value of Outdoor Adventure Education for Educational Leaders. Doctoral dissertation, University of Louisiana

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

Billard M (2010) A Yoga Manifesto. New York Times ST1

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Agarwal 2000).
This sentence cites two references (Agarwal 2000; Forterre and Dumais 2011).

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

Two authors: (Forterre and Dumais 2011)
Three or more authors: (Garsin et al. 2003)

About the journal

Full journal title	Plant Biotechnology Reports
Abbreviation	Plant Biotechnol. Rep.
ISSN (print)	1863-5466
ISSN (online)	1863-5474
Scope	Plant Science Biotechnology

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