How to format your references using the The EMBO Journal citation style

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

Bizzarro M (2014) Planetary science. Probing the solar system’s prenatal history. Science 345: 620–621

A journal article with 2 authors

van’t Veer LJ & Bernards R (2008) Enabling personalized cancer medicine through analysis of gene-expression patterns. Nature 452: 564–570

A journal article with 3 authors

Butler SJ, Vickery JA & Norris K (2007) Farmland biodiversity and the footprint of agriculture. Science 315: 381–384

A journal article with 21 or more authors

Fulde M, Sommer F, Chassaing B, van Vorst K, Dupont A, Hensel M, Basic M, Klopfleisch R, Rosenstiel P, Bleich A, Bäckhed F, Gewirtz AT & Hornef MW (2018) Neonatal selection by Toll-like receptor 5 influences long-term gut microbiota composition. Nature 560: 489–493

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Anderson JB (2005) Digital Transmission Engineering Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Meersman R & Tari Z eds. (2008) On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems: OTM 2008: OTM 2008 Confederated International Conferences, CoopIS, DOA, GADA, IS, and ODBASE 2008, Monterrey, Mexico, November 9-14, 2008, Proceedings, Part I Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer

A chapter in an edited book

Gentile MS & Small W (2015) Prevention of Injury from Pelvic Irradiation. In Radiation Therapy for Pelvic Malignancy and its Consequences, Ehrenpreis ED Marsh R de W & Small W Jr (eds) pp 65–76. New York, NY: Springer

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 The EMBO Journal.

Blog post

Davis J (2016) The Last 12-Month Period Was The Hottest For The Ninth Time In A Row. IFLScience Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/the-last-12month-period-was-the-hottest-for-the-ninth-time-in-a-row/ [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 (2007) Emergency Management: Status of School Districts’ Planning and Preparedness Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Villa J (2017) Multicultural Training for Mental Health Professionals Working in the Juvenile Justice System.

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

Ivory D & Ruiz RR (2014) G.M. Resists Expanding Victims’ Fund. New York Times: B1

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Bizzarro, 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Bizzarro, 2014; van’t Veer & Bernards, 2008).

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

Two authors: (van’t Veer & Bernards, 2008)
Three or more authors: (Fulde et al, 2018)

About the journal

Full journal title	The EMBO Journal
Abbreviation	EMBO J.
ISSN (print)	0261-4189
ISSN (online)	1460-2075
Scope	General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology Molecular Biology General Immunology and Microbiology General Neuroscience