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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The Journal of Experimental Biology. 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.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
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
van Meer, G. (2002). Cell biology. The different hues of lipid rafts. Science 296, 855–857.
A journal article with 2 authors
Semmelhack, J. L. and Wang, J. W. (2009). Select Drosophila glomeruli mediate innate olfactory attraction and aversion. Nature 459, 218–223.
A journal article with 3 authors
Patek, S. N., Korff, W. L. and Caldwell, R. L. (2004). Biomechanics: deadly strike mechanism of a mantis shrimp. Nature 428, 819–820.
A journal article with 11 or more authors
Lambert, F., Delmonte, B., Petit, J. R., Bigler, M., Kaufmann, P. R., Hutterli, M. A., Stocker, T. F., Ruth, U., Steffensen, J. P. and Maggi, V. (2008). Dust-climate couplings over the past 800,000 years from the EPICA Dome C ice core. Nature 452, 616–619.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Lee, Y. S. (2011). Self-Assembly and Nanotechnology Systems. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
Andersen, H. T. and Atkinson, R. eds. (2013). Production and Use of Urban Knowledge: European Experiences. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.
A chapter in an edited book
Demoor, T., Fiems, D., Walraevens, J. and Bruneel, H. (2010). The Preemptive Repeat Hybrid Server Interruption Model. In Analytical and Stochastic Modeling Techniques and Applications: 17th International Conference, ASMTA 2010, Cardiff, UK, June 14-16, 2010. Proceedings (ed. Al-Begain, K.), Fiems, D.), and Knottenbelt, W. J.), pp. 59–71. Berlin, Heidelberg: 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 Journal of Experimental Biology.

Blog post
Carpineti, C. (2017). The Extent Of Winter Ice At The Poles In 2017 Is Deeply Disturbing. 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 (2004). Federal Family Education Loan Program: Statutory and Regulatory Changes Could Avert Billions in Unnecessary Federal Subsidy Payments. 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
Cannon, J. R. (2012). Microwave-supported acid hydrolysis for proteomics.

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
Poniewozik, J. (2017). Fox News Is Fixing For a Fight At Night. New York Times C1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (van Meer, 2002).
This sentence cites two references (Semmelhack and Wang, 2009; van Meer, 2002).

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

  • Two authors: (Semmelhack and Wang, 2009)
  • Three or more authors: (Lambert et al., 2008)

About the journal

Full journal titleThe Journal of Experimental Biology
AbbreviationJ. Exp. Biol.
ISSN (print)0022-0949
ISSN (online)1477-9145
ScopeAnimal Science and Zoology
Aquatic Science
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Insect Science
Molecular Biology
Physiology

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