How to format your references using the The Journal of General Physiology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The Journal of General Physiology. 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

Bilbe, G. 2015. Infectious diseases. Overcoming neglect of kinetoplastid diseases. Science. 348:974–976.

A journal article with 2 authors

Owen, J., and A. Hector. 2014. Materials science. Phase-transforming electrodes. Science. 344:1451–1452.

A journal article with 3 authors

Reimand, J., O. Wagih, and G.D. Bader. 2013. The mutational landscape of phosphorylation signaling in cancer. Sci. Rep. 3:2651.

A journal article with 99 or more authors

Yao, J., K.M. Munson, W.W. Webb, and J.T. Lis. 2006. Dynamics of heat shock factor association with native gene loci in living cells. Nature. 442:1050–1053.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Biegelman, M.T., and D.R. Biegelman. 2010. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Compliance Guidebook. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Mariani, M.M., W. Czakon, D. Buhalis, and O. Vitouladiti eds. . 2016. Tourism Management, Marketing, and Development: Performance, Strategies, and Sustainability. Palgrave Macmillan US, New York, NY. IX, 292 p pp.

A chapter in an edited book

Dimian, M., and P. Andrei. 2014. Noise Spectral Density of Hysteretic Systems. In Noise-Driven Phenomena in Hysteretic Systems. P. Andrei, editor. Springer, New York, NY. 167–200.

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 General Physiology.

Blog post

Andrew, E. 2014. Could Photons Travel Through Time Using Wormholes? 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. Spectrum Management: Better Knowledge Needed to Take Advantage of Technologies That May Improve Spectrum Efficiency. 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

Blasdel, E.S. 2010. A phenomenological study of barriers for women in federal law enforcement. University of Phoenix, Phoenix, AZ.

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

Kelly, M. 1992. The Winners Shift Gears: What Now? New York Times. B3.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Bilbe, 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Bilbe, 2015; Owen and Hector, 2014).

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

Two authors: (Owen and Hector, 2014)
Three or more authors: (Yao et al., 2006)

About the journal

Full journal title	The Journal of General Physiology
Abbreviation	J. Gen. Physiol.
ISSN (print)	0022-1295
ISSN (online)	1540-7748
Scope	Physiology