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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The Protein 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Veltman C (2003) Genesis of a high-tech hub. Nature 426:700–704

A journal article with 2 authors

Li S, Wang J (2014) A compact trench-assisted multi-orbital-angular-momentum multi-ring fiber for ultrahigh-density space-division multiplexing (19 rings × 22 modes). Sci Rep 4:3853

A journal article with 3 authors

Fedorov AV, Brierley CM, Emanuel K (2010) Tropical cyclones and permanent El Niño in the early Pliocene epoch. Nature 463:1066–1070

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Vishal M, Sharma A, Kaurani L, et al (2014) Evaluation of genetic association of the INK4 locus with primary open angle glaucoma in East Indian population. Sci Rep 4:5115

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hallberg MC (2008) Economic Trends in U.S. Agriculture and Food Systems Since World War II. Iowa State University Press, Ames, Iowa, USA

An edited book

Marinello F, Passeri D, Savio E (2013) Acoustic Scanning Probe Microscopy. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

A chapter in an edited book

Puri R, Nicholls SJ (2014) Monitoring the Progression and Regression of Coronary Atherosclerosis with Intravascular Ultrasound. In: Nicholls SJ, Crowe T (eds) Imaging Coronary Atherosclerosis. Springer, New York, NY, pp 67–79

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 Protein Journal.

Blog post

Hamilton K (2016) World’s First Three-Parent Baby Raises Questions About Long-Term Health Risks. In: IFLScience. 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 (2005) Federal Student Loan Repayment Program: OPM Could Build on Its Efforts to Help Agencies Administer the Program and Measure Results. 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

Merkurjev D (2015) Understanding Enhancer Role in Transcriptional Response. Doctoral dissertation, University of California San Diego

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

Gordon MR (2017) Mattis Orders First Group of Reinforcements to Afghanistan. New York Times A8

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 Protein Journal
Abbreviation	J. Protein Chem.
ISSN (print)	1572-3887
ISSN (online)	1573-4943
Scope	Biochemistry Bioengineering Analytical Chemistry Organic Chemistry