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

Cohen, M.R. (2012) Eppendorf winner. When attention wanders. Science 338, 58–59

A journal article with 2 authors

Izawa, D. and Pines, J. (2015) The mitotic checkpoint complex binds a second CDC20 to inhibit active APC/C. Nature 517, 631–634

A journal article with 3 authors

Clement, A.C. et al. (2009) Observational and model evidence for positive low-level cloud feedback. Science 325, 460–464

A journal article with 3 or more authors

Bradshaw, N. et al. (2009) Signal sequences activate the catalytic switch of SRP RNA. Science 323, 127–130

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Landa, R. (2016) Advertising by Design, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Hort, N. et al., eds. (2016) Magnesium Technology 2013, Springer International Publishing

A chapter in an edited book

Acharyya, M. (2008) An Empirical Study on Enterprise Risk Management in Insurance. In New Frontiers in Enterprise Risk Management (Olson, D. L. and Wu, D., eds), pp. 39–55, 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 Trends in Microbiology.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2015) Dunkin’ Donuts Ditches Titanium Dioxide – But Is It Actually Harmful?. 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 (1994) Amtrak: Financial Condition Has Deteriorated and Future Costs Make Recovery Difficult, 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

Lovejoy, L.P. (2010) On the control of selective attention in the primate superior colliculus. 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

Shattuck, K. (2017) A Break From ‘House of Cards’ IntrigueNew York Times, MB2

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)