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

Smaglik P. A cold shoulder for stocks. Nature 2003; 421:671.

A journal article with 2 authors

Mellars P, French JC. Tenfold population increase in Western Europe at the Neandertal-to-modern human transition. Science 2011; 333:623–7.

A journal article with 3 authors

Milinski M, Semmann D, Krambeck H-J. Reputation helps solve the “tragedy of the commons.” Nature 2002; 415:424–6.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Chandrashekar J, Hoon MA, Ryba NJP, Zuker CS. The receptors and cells for mammalian taste. Nature 2006; 444:288–94.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Zelterman D. Discrete Distributions: Applications in the Health Sciences. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2005.

An edited book

Yahav E, editor. Hardware and Software: Verification and Testing: 10th International Haifa Verification Conference, HVC 2014, Haifa, Israel, November 18-20, 2014. Proceedings. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

Skuk D, Tremblay JP. A Historic Recapitulation of Myoblast Transplantation. In: Dib N, Taylor DA, Diethrich EB, editors. Stem Cell Therapy and Tissue Engineering for Cardiovascular Repair: From Basic Research to Clinical Applications. Boston, MA: Springer US; 2006. page 61–79.

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. A Completely New Human Organ Has Just Been Officially Discovered [Internet]. IFLScience2017 [cited 2018 Oct 30]; Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/completely-new-human-organ-officially-discovered/

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. Information Technology: DHS Needs to Fully Define and Implement Policies and Procedures for Effectively Managing Investments. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2007.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Jha JS. [3+2] Cycloaddition Reaction of Gem-Dicyanoepoxide and Electrophilic Reaction of Ethyl Atropate. 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

Walsh MW. House Republicans Advance Plan to Rescue Puerto Rico. New York Times2016; :B1.

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