How to format your references using the Trends in Microbiology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Trends in Microbiology. 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

Smaglik, P. (2000) United States backs soil strategy in fight against global warming. Nature 406, 549–550

A journal article with 2 authors

Hartl, F.U. and Hayer-Hartl, M. (2002) Molecular chaperones in the cytosol: from nascent chain to folded protein. Science 295, 1852–1858

A journal article with 3 authors

Nuttall, W.J. et al. (2012) Resources: Stop squandering helium. Nature 485, 573–575

A journal article with 3 or more authors

Murtra, P. et al. (2000) Rewarding effects of opiates are absent in mice lacking the receptor for substance P. Nature 405, 180–183

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Wen, S. and Huang, P. (2011) Principles of Tribology, John Wiley & Sons (Asia) Pte Ltd

An edited book

Olbers, D. (2012) Ocean Dynamics, Springer

A chapter in an edited book

Pereira-Sáez, C. (2016) Philosophical Imperialism? A Critical View of North American Principlist Bioethics. In Bioethical Decision Making and Argumentation (Serna, P. and Seoane, J.-A., eds), pp. 43–56, Springer International Publishing

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 Trends in Microbiology.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2014) Scientists Create Transparent Solar Concentrator. IFLScience. [Online]. [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 (1991) Tax System Modernization: Status of On-Line Files Initiative and Telecommunications Planning, 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

Viramontes, M. (2009) Parenting styles and practices and their impact on school behavior. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach

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

Weiser, B. and Protess, B. (2016) New Chief for U.S. Crime DivisionNew York Times, B5

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	Trends in Microbiology
Abbreviation	Trends Microbiol.
ISSN (print)	0966-842X
ISSN (online)	1878-4380
Scope	Microbiology Virology Infectious Diseases Microbiology (medical)