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

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

Laxminarayan R. Antibiotic effectiveness: balancing conservation against innovation. Science 2014; 345: 1299–1301.

A journal article with 2 authors

Bokov K, Steinberg SV. A hierarchical model for evolution of 23S ribosomal RNA. Nature 2009; 457: 977–980.

A journal article with 3 authors

Goodman DB, Church GM, Kosuri S. Causes and effects of N-terminal codon bias in bacterial genes. Science 2013; 342: 475–479.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Manzano G, Galve F, Giorgi GL, Hernández-García E, Zambrini R. Synchronization, quantum correlations and entanglement in oscillator networks. Sci Rep 2013; 3: 1439.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Gwynne P. World Religions in Practice. 2017. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK.

An edited book

Deng W (ed). Future Control and Automation: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Future Control and Automation (ICFCA 2012) - Volume 1. 2012. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

Braje TJ. The Human–Animal Experience in Deep Historical Perspective. In: Blazina C, Boyraz G, Shen-Miller D (eds). The Psychology of the Human-Animal Bond: A Resource for Clinicians and Researchers. 2011. Springer, New York, NY, pp 63–80.

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 ISME Journal.

Blog post

Luntz S. The Straight Dope On The Genetics Of Cannabis. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/straight-dope-genetics-cannabis/. Accessed 30 Oct 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. Aviation and the Environment: Impact of Aviation Noise on Communities Presents Challenges for Airport Operations and Future Growth of the National Airspace System. 2007. 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

Burnley T. Psychotherapist as Modern-Day Shaman. 2012. Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute.

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

Mueller B. An Off-Duty Police Officer Is Robbed of Her Gun After Being Attacked in the Bronx. New York Times . 2015. , A19

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	The ISME Journal
Abbreviation	ISME J.
ISSN (print)	1751-7362
ISSN (online)	1751-7370
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Microbiology