How to format your references using the Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Siegel, J.S., 2004. Chemistry. Chemical topology and interlocking molecules. Science 304, 1256–1258.

A journal article with 2 authors

Chitwood, D.H., Timmermans, M.C.P., 2010. Small RNAs are on the move. Nature 467, 415–419.

A journal article with 3 authors

Staver, A.C., Archibald, S., Levin, S.A., 2011. The global extent and determinants of savanna and forest as alternative biome states. Science 334, 230–232.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Merz, J.F., Kriss, A.G., Leonard, D.G.B., Cho, M.K., 2002. Diagnostic testing fails the test. Nature 415, 577–579.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Purkis, S., Klemas, V., 2011. Remote Sensing and Global Environmental Change. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, West Sussex, UK.

An edited book

Cin, M.D., Kaâniche, M., Pataricza, A. (Eds.), 2005. Dependable Computing - EDCC 5: 5th European Dependable Computing Conference, Budapest, Hungary, April 20-22, 2005. Proceedings, Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

Goodess, C.M., Agnew, M.D., Giannakopoulos, C., Hemming, D., Salem, S.B., Bindi, M., Bradai, M.N., Congedi, L., Dibari, C., El-Askary, H., El-Fadel, M., El-Raey, M., Ferrise, R., Founda, D., Grünzweig, J.M., Harzallah, A., Hatzaki, M., Kay, G., Lionello, P., Aranda, C.M., Oweis, T., Sierra, J.P., Psiloglou, B., Reale, M., Sánchez-Arcilla, A., Senouci, M., Tanzarella, A., Varotsos, K.V., 2013. Integration of the Climate Impact Assessments with Future Projections, in: Navarra, A., Tubiana, L. (Eds.), Regional Assessment of Climate Change in the Mediterranean: Volume 3: Case Studies, Advances in Global Change Research. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp. 105–162.

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 Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences.

Blog post

Andrew, E., 2014. Identical genetics doesn’t mean identical behavior for bacteria [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/identical-genetics-doesn’t-mean-identical-behavior-bacteria/ (accessed 10.30.18).

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, 1990. B-2 Bomber: Contract Structure and Selected Provisions (No. NSIAD-90-230FS). 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

CampBell, P.K., 2012. Lenses of indigenous feminism: Digging up the roots of Western patriarchy in “Perma Red” and “Monkey Beach” (Doctoral dissertation). University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.

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

Kelly, K., Davis, J.H., 2017. Lawsuit Challenges the Secrecy of White House Advisers on Infrastructure. New York Times A10.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Siegel, 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Chitwood and Timmermans, 2010; Siegel, 2004).

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

Two authors: (Chitwood and Timmermans, 2010)
Three or more authors: (Merz et al., 2002)

About the journal

Full journal title	Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences
Abbreviation	Saudi J. Biol. Sci.
ISSN (print)	1319-562X
Scope	General Agricultural and Biological Sciences