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

Wang J (2005) DNA polymerases: Hoogsteen base-pairing in DNA replication? Nature 437: E6-7; discussion E7

A journal article with 2 authors

McConkey EH & Varki A (2005) Genomics. Thoughts on the future of great ape research. Science 309: 1499–1501

A journal article with 3 authors

Lee A, Dennis C & Campbell P (2007) Nature’s guide for mentors. Nature 447: 791–797

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Keenlyside NS, Latif M, Jungclaus J, Kornblueh L & Roeckner E (2008) Advancing decadal-scale climate prediction in the North Atlantic sector. Nature 453: 84–88

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Atherton J, Gil F & Center for Chemical Process Safety (2008) Incidents That Define Process Safety Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Liersch R, Berdel WE & Kessler T eds. (2010) Angiogenesis Inhibition Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer

A chapter in an edited book

Kleine H (2015) High-Speed Visualization of Compressible Flows – Potential and Limitations. In 29th International Symposium on Shock Waves 1: Volume 1, Bonazza R & Ranjan D (eds) pp 27–34. Cham: Springer International Publishing

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

Fang J (2014) Turn Your Phone Into A Cosmic Ray Detector. IFLScience

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 (1976) Problems Associated With D.C. Public Schools Payroll Reporting System 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

Louviere EC (2017) Bonds Behind Bars: The Impact of Program Participation on Interpersonal Inmate Connections in Louisiana State Penitentiary.

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

Hartman S (2014) Brooklyn Boxer Rises, but Her Feet Stay on the Ground. New York Times: A22

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Wang, 2005).
This sentence cites two references (Wang, 2005; McConkey & Varki, 2005).

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

Two authors: (McConkey & Varki, 2005)
Three or more authors: (Keenlyside et al, 2008)

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