How to format your references using the Zebrafish citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Zebrafish (ZEB). 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

Joyce GF. The antiquity of RNA-based evolution. Nature 2002;418(6894):214–221.

A journal article with 2 authors

Côté IM, Cheney KL. Animal mimicry: choosing when to be a cleaner-fish mimic. Nature 2005;433(7023):211–212.

A journal article with 3 authors

Xu B, Wang Q, Tian Y. Bulk modulus for polar covalent crystals. Sci Rep 2013;3:3068.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Gittins DI, Bethell D, Schiffrin DJ, et al. A nanometre-scale electronic switch consisting of a metal cluster and redox-addressable groups. Nature 2000;408(6808):67–69.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bunnell T. From World City to the World in One City. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Chichester, UK; 2016.

An edited book

Ackers P, Reid AJ, (eds). Alternatives to State-Socialism in Britain: Other Worlds of Labour in the Twentieth Century. Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements. Springer International Publishing: Cham; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

Crozier AJ. Festina Lente: An Introductory Sketch of the History of ASEAN. In: Integration in Asia and Europe: Historical Dynamics, Political Issues, and Economic Perspectives. (Welfens PJJ, Knipping F, Chirathivat S, et al. eds) Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg; 2006; pp. 13–29.

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 Zebrafish.

Blog post

Fang J. Cheetahs and Pumas Have Hunting Down to a Science. IFLScience; 2014. [Last accessed: 10/30/2018].

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. Federal Trust and Other Earmarked Funds: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions. U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC; 2001.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Mahan CP. First to the Finish Line: A Case Study of First Generation Baccalaureate Degree Completers in the University of Maryland Student Support Services Program. Doctoral dissertation. University of Maryland, College Park: College Park, MD; 2010.

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

Van Gelder SKC by L. Arts, Briefly; “Vagina Monologues” in Moscow. New York Times 2005;B10.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

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	Zebrafish
ISSN (print)	1545-8547
ISSN (online)	1557-8542
Scope