How to format your references using the The Journal of Biological Chemistry citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC). 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

Graf, H.-F. (2004) Atmospheric science. The complex interaction of aerosols and clouds. Science. 303, 1309–1311

A journal article with 2 authors

Lloyd-Jones, G. C., and Ball, L. T. (2014) Catalysis. Self-control tames the coupling of reactive radicals. Science. 345, 381–382

A journal article with 3 authors

Suvà, M. L., Riggi, N., and Bernstein, B. E. (2013) Epigenetic reprogramming in cancer. Science. 339, 1567–1570

A journal article with 4 or more authors

O’Neill, J. S., Maywood, E. S., Chesham, J. E., Takahashi, J. S., and Hastings, M. H. (2008) cAMP-dependent signaling as a core component of the mammalian circadian pacemaker. Science. 320, 949–953

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Picard, F., and Tanguy, C. (2016) Innovations and Techno-ecological Transition, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Ember, M., Ember, C. R., and Skoggard, I. (eds.) (2005) Encyclopedia of Diasporas: Immigrant and Refugee Cultures Around the World, Springer US, Boston, MA

A chapter in an edited book

Muñoz, G. M., and Soto, D. R. (2016) Boom and Bust in Colombia 1990–2013. in Latin America after the Financial Crisis: Economic Ramifications from Heterodox Perspectives (Santarcángelo, J. E., Justo, O., and Cooney, P. eds), pp. 87–115, Palgrave Macmillan US, New York, NY

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 Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Blog post

Carpineti, A. (2016) Planet Nine Could Cause Havoc In The Solar System In The Distant Future. IFLScience. [online] https://www.iflscience.com/space/planet-nine-could-cause-havoc-in-the-solar-system-in-the-distant-future/ (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 (1997) Transportation Issue Area Plan--Fiscal Years 1998-2000, 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

Wang, T. (2013) Talking to Strangers: Chinese Youth and Social Media. Doctoral dissertation thesis, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA

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

Stelter, B. (2013) Waking Up On The Wrong Side Of A Rating War. New York Times

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in parentheses:

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 Journal of Biological Chemistry
Abbreviation	J. Biol. Chem.
ISSN (print)	0021-9258
ISSN (online)	1083-351X
Scope	Biochemistry Cell Biology Molecular Biology