How to format your references using the Research in Microbiology citation style

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

[1]

Boulton G. Open your minds and share your results. Nature 2012;486:441.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Levison HF, Morbidelli A. The formation of the Kuiper belt by the outward transport of bodies during Neptune’s migration. Nature 2003;426:419–21.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Shih WM, Quispe JD, Joyce GF. A 1.7-kilobase single-stranded DNA that folds into a nanoscale octahedron. Nature 2004;427:618–21.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Reith F, Rogers SL, McPhail DC, Webb D. Biomineralization of gold: biofilms on bacterioform gold. Science 2006;313:233–6.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Perera AH, Buse LJ. Ecology of Wildfire Residuals in Boreal Forests. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2014.

An edited book

[1]

Ceci M, Loglisci C, Manco G, Masciari E, Ras ZW, editors. New Frontiers in Mining Complex Patterns: 4th International Workshop, NFMCP 2015, Held in Conjunction with ECML-PKDD 2015, Porto, Portugal, September 7, 2015, Revised Selected Papers. vol. 9607. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Lindley JD, Koshal RK. Distribution Channels and Energy Crisis: A Historical Perspective. In: Rogers JC III, Lamb CW Jr, editors. Proceedings of the 1983 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference, Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015, p. 17–21.

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 Research in Microbiology.

Blog post

[1]

Andrew D. What Your Pee And Poo Colour Says About Your Health. IFLScience 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/what-your-pee-and-poo-colour-says-about-your-health/ (accessed October 30, 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

[1]

Government Accountability Office. Air Passenger Screening: Transportation Security Administration Needs to Improve Complaint Processes. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2012.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Kolasa A. Essays on Firm Behavior in Developing Countries. Doctoral dissertation. George Washington University, 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

[1]

Sparer MS. The New Obamacare: Medicaid. New York Times 2017:A27.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

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	Research in Microbiology
Abbreviation	Res. Microbiol.
ISSN (print)	0923-2508
Scope	Molecular Biology Microbiology General Medicine