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

Bignami, G.F. (2008) Astronomy. Gamma rays and neutron stars. Science 322, 1193–1194

A journal article with 2 authors

Goldsby, D.L. and Tullis, T.E. (2011) Flash heating leads to low frictional strength of crustal rocks at earthquake slip rates. Science 334, 216–218

A journal article with 3 authors

Galbraith, C.G. et al. (2007) Polymerizing actin fibers position integrins primed to probe for adhesion sites. Science 315, 992–995

A journal article with 3 or more authors

Iwata, N. et al. (2013) Global brain delivery of neprilysin gene by intravascular administration of AAV vector in mice. Sci. Rep. 3, 1472

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Makower, T. (2014) Touching the City, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

An edited book

Choi, S.-K. (2007) Reliability-based Structural Design, Springer

A chapter in an edited book

Babin, A. and Figotin, A. (2016) The Maxwell Equations. In Neoclassical Theory of Electromagnetic Interactions: A Single Theory for Macroscopic and Microscopic Scales (Figotin, A., ed), pp. 89–100, 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) Study Finds Association Between Poverty And Brain Development During Childhood. 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 (1997) Transportation Financing: Challenges in Meeting Long-Term Funding Needs for FAA, Amtrak, and the Nation’s Highways, 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

Chatterjee, K. (2012) A probabilistic mechanistic approach for assessing the rupture frequency of small modular reactor steam generator tubes using uncertain inputs from in-service inspections. Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park

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

Mazzetti, M. et al. (2017) Under Trump, Shell of a Force In Syria Swiftly Lost C.I.A. AidNew York Times, A1

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)

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