How to format your references using the Retrovirology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Retrovirology. 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. Service RF. BODY CHEMISTRY: Forensic Science on a Shoestring. Science. 2000;289:857.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Sitia R, Braakman I. Quality control in the endoplasmic reticulum protein factory. Nature. 2003;426:891–4.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Trumbore S, Brando P, Hartmann H. Forest health and global change. Science. 2015;349:814–8.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Zhang M, Wang C, Otto TD, Oberstaller J, Liao X, Adapa SR, et al. Uncovering the essential genes of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum by saturation mutagenesis. Science. 2018;360.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Gelbaum BR. Modern Real and Complex Analysis. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 1995.

An edited book

1. Álvarez F, Cleary F, Daras P, Domingue J, Galis A, Garcia A, et al., editors. The Future Internet: Future Internet Assembly 2012: From Promises to Reality. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2012.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Fippel M. Monte Carlo Treatment Planning. In: De Salles AAF, Gorgulho A, Agazaryan N, Slotman B, Selch M, Burwick AJ, et al., editors. Shaped Beam Radiosurgery: State of the Art. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011. p. 47–59.

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 Retrovirology.

Blog post

1. Luntz S. Some Of The Earth’s Original Crust Survives In Northern Canada. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2017.

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. Schools and Workplaces: An Overview of Successful and Unsuccessful Practices. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1995 Aug. Report No.: PEMD-95-28.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Moose AM. The Relationship of Distributed Expertise and Shared Leadership in New Product Development Teams: A Comparative Case Study [Doctoral dissertation]. [Washington, DC]: George Washington University; 2013.

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. Almosawa S, Hubbard B. Saudi-Led Airstrikes Blamed for Massacre of Scores of Yemeni Mourners. New York Times. 2016 Oct 8;A14.

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	Retrovirology
Abbreviation	Retrovirology
ISSN (online)	1742-4690
Scope	Virology Infectious Diseases