How to format your references using the Seminars in Cell and Developmental Biology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Seminars in Cell and Developmental 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

[1]

E.H. Davidson, Retrospective. Roy J. Britten (1919-2012), Science. 335 (2012) 1183.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

J. Jin, D.W.C. MacMillan, Alcohols as alkylating agents in heteroarene C-H functionalization, Nature. 525 (2015) 87–90.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

J.L. Chen, C.R. Wilson, B.D. Tapley, Satellite gravity measurements confirm accelerated melting of Greenland ice sheet, Science. 313 (2006) 1958–1960.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

C.E. Diebel, R. Proksch, C.R. Green, P. Neilson, M.M. Walker, Magnetite defines a vertebrate magnetoreceptor, Nature. 406 (2000) 299–302.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

I.R. Brenner, How to Survive a Medical Malpractice Lawsuit, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex, UK, 2010.

An edited book

[1]

Y. Dobashi, H. Ochiai, eds., Mathematical Progress in Expressive Image Synthesis III: Selected and Extended Results from the Symposium MEIS2015, Springer, Singapore, 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

H.T. Nähler, B. Gronauer, Using Enhanced Nested Function Models for Strategic Product Development, in: L. Chechurin (Ed.), Research and Practice on the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ): Linking Creativity, Engineering and Innovation, Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2016: pp. 55–75.

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 Seminars in Cell and Developmental Biology.

Blog post

[1]

B. Taub, “Princess Leia Brainwaves” Help Consolidate Memories While We Sleep, IFLScience. (2016).

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, Weather Satellites: Planning for the Geostationary Satellite Program Needs More Attention, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1997.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

C. Nolan, Safety Mindfulness: The Incorporation of Low-Dose Mindfulness as a Leading Edge Safety Intervention, Doctoral dissertation, Pepperdine University, 2017.

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]

J. Leland, Faith and Family, in Transition, New York Times. (2017) MB1.

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	Seminars in Cell and Developmental Biology
Abbreviation	Semin. Cell Dev. Biol.
ISSN (print)	1084-9521
Scope	Cell Biology Developmental Biology