How to format your references using the The International Journal of Developmental Biology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The International Journal of Developmental Biology (IJDB). 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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
HAASE AT (2010). Targeting early infection to prevent HIV-1 mucosal transmission. Nature 464: 217–223.
A journal article with 2 authors
SONTHEIMER EJ, CARTHEW RW (2004). Molecular biology. Argonaute journeys into the heart of RISC. Science 305: 1409–1410.
A journal article with 3 authors
VELEV OD, PREVO BG, BHATT KH (2003). On-chip manipulation of free droplets. Nature 426: 515–516.
A journal article with 20 or more authors
TOGA T, KURAOKA I, WATANABE S, NAKANO E, TAKEUCHI S, NISHIGORI C, SUGASAWA K, IWAI S (2014). Fluorescence detection of cellular nucleotide excision repair of damaged DNA. Sci Rep 4: 5578.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
MEYR H, MOENECLAEY M, FECHTEL SA (2001). Digital Communication Receivers: Synchronization, Channel Estimation, and Signal Processing. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, USA.
An edited book
BRUNO R (2016). Turbulence in the Solar Wind, Ed. V Carbone. Springer International Publishing, Cham.
A chapter in an edited book
POTH S (2014). Changing Strategies and Control Systems at a German Insurance Company. In Strategy, Control and Competitive Advantage: Case Study Evidence (Eds E Jannesson, F Nilsson, and B Rapp). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp. 107–137.

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 International Journal of Developmental Biology.

Blog post
ANDREW E (2015). How Much Does Wind Energy Cost? Debunking The Myths. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/how-much-does-wind-energy-cost-debunking-myths/ [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). DOD Major Automated Information Systems: Improvements Can Be Made in Reporting Critical Changes and Clarifying Leadership Responsibility. 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
VALADEZ I (2010). A psycho-education peer support group for homeless youth: A grant proposal. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach.

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
FAUSSET R (2017). After Proudly Defying Washington, Hard-Hit Texas Needs Its Aid. New York Times: A1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Haase, 2010).
This sentence cites two references (Haase, 2010; Sontheimer and Carthew, 2004).

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

  • Two authors: (Sontheimer and Carthew, 2004)
  • Three or more authors: (Toga et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal titleThe International Journal of Developmental Biology
AbbreviationInt. J. Dev. Biol.
ISSN (print)0214-6282
ISSN (online)1696-3547
ScopeDevelopmental Biology
Embryology

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