How to format your references using the RNA citation style

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

Sarewitz D. 2010. Entertaining science. Nature 466: 27.

A journal article with 2 authors

Schrag DP, Linsley BK. 2002. Paleoclimate. Corals, chemistry, and climate. Science 296: 277–278.

A journal article with 3 authors

King N, Hittinger CT, Carroll SB. 2003. Evolution of key cell signaling and adhesion protein families predates animal origins. Science 301: 361–363.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Draganski B, Gaser C, Busch V, Schuierer G, Bogdahn U, May A. 2004. Neuroplasticity: changes in grey matter induced by training. Nature 427: 311–312.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Alberts B, Johnson A, Lewis J, Morgan D, Raff M, Roberts K, Walter P. 2017. Molekularbiologie der Zelle. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany.

An edited book

Fine B. 2007. Number Theory: An Introduction via the Distribution of Primes. ed. G. Rosenberger. Birkhäuser, Boston, MA.

A chapter in an edited book

Kelsey TW, Hardy K. 2015. Marcellus Shale and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In Economics of Unconventional Shale Gas Development: Case Studies and Impacts (eds. W.E. Hefley and Y. Wang), pp. 93–120, Springer International Publishing, Cham.

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.

Blog post

Andrew D. 2015. Check Out This Spectacular Photo Of The Grand Canyon. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/technology/diy-weather-ballon-captures-incredible-footage/ (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

Government Accountability Office. 2016. Independent Auditor’s Report on Applying Agreed-Upon Procedures: Fiscal Year 2016 Excise Tax Distributions to the Airport and Airway Trust Fund and the Highway Trust Fund. 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

Cummins K. 2015. A Mixed Methods Study on The Leader in Me Process: How Does Fostering Student Leadership Capacity Influence Behavior, Efficacy, and Achievement? Doctoral dissertation, University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA.

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

Brantley B. 2017. Don’t Cry, Baby Monkeys. New York Times, July 11.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Sarewitz 2010).
This sentence cites two references (Sarewitz 2010; Schrag and Linsley 2002).

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

Two authors: (Schrag and Linsley 2002)
Three or more authors: (Draganski et al. 2004)

About the journal

Full journal title	RNA
Abbreviation	RNA
ISSN (print)	1335-8382
ISSN (online)	1469-9001
Scope	Molecular Biology

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