How to format your references using the RNA Biology citation style

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

Starr C. Powerful reactions. Nature 2000; 406:679.

A journal article with 2 authors

Anderson BL, Winawer J. Image segmentation and lightness perception. Nature 2005; 434:79–83.

A journal article with 3 authors

Kumar G, Tang HX, Schroers J. Nanomoulding with amorphous metals. Nature 2009; 457:868–72.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Gilbert M, Mitchell A, Bourn D, Mawdsley J, Clifton-Hadley R, Wint W. Cattle movements and bovine tuberculosis in Great Britain. Nature 2005; 435:491–6.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Micouin P. Model-Based Systems Engineering. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2014.

An edited book

Wagner A. Interpretation, Law and the Construction of Meaning: Collected Papers on Legal Interpretation in Theory, Adjudication and Political Practice. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2007.

A chapter in an edited book

Grollmann P, Hayward G. Case Studies of TVET Research. In: Rauner F, Maclean R, editors. Handbook of Technical and Vocational Education and Training Research. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2009. page 611–95.

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 RNA Biology.

Blog post

Andrews R. “Arctic Amplification” Caused Greenland To Set Melting Records In 2015 [Internet]. IFLScience2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]; Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/arctic-amplification-caused-greenland-to-set-melting-records-in-2015/

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. Crop Forecasting by Satellite: Progress and Problems. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1978.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Dillon KS. Social support to families of children with special needs: A grant. 2009;

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

Kanter J, Castle S. E.U. Leaders Talk Tough on ‘Brexit.’ New York Times2016; :A8.

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	RNA Biology
Abbreviation	RNA Biol.
ISSN (print)	1547-6286
ISSN (online)	1555-8584
Scope	Cell Biology Molecular Biology