How to format your references using the BBA - Gene Regulatory Mechanisms citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BBA - Gene Regulatory Mechanisms. 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 reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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

[1]

A. Abbott, Membrane proteins: channel voyager makes waves, Nature 426 (2003) 755.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

R.W. Friedrich, G. Laurent, Dynamic optimization of odor representations by slow temporal patterning of mitral cell activity, Science 291 (2001) 889–894.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

E.M. Friis, K.R. Pedersen, P.R. Crane, Fossil evidence of water lilies (Nymphaeales) in the Early Cretaceous, Nature 410 (2001) 357–360.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

D. Bor, N. Rothen, D.J. Schwartzman, S. Clayton, A.K. Seth, Adults can be trained to acquire synesthetic experiences, Sci. Rep. 4 (2014) 7089.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

B. Linder, Thermodynamics and Introductory Statistical Mechanics, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2004.

An edited book

[1]

C. Kościelny, Modern Cryptography Primer: Theoretical Foundations and Practical Applications, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

F. Depaulis, S. Mousset, M. Veuille, Detecting Selective Sweeps with Haplotype Tests, in: D. Nurminsky (Ed.), Selective Sweep, Springer US, Boston, MA, 2005: pp. 34–54.

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 BBA - Gene Regulatory Mechanisms.

Blog post

[1]

J. Fang, Gene For Beak Size In Darwin’s Finches Identified, IFLScience (2016). https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/gene-beak-size-darwins-finches-identified/ (accessed October 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

[1]

Government Accountability Office, Applying Agreed-Upon Procedures: Fiscal Year 2008 Highway Trust Fund Excise Taxes, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2008.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

N.T. Webber, Peptide ion conformation studies and the 157 nm photofragmentation of arginine containing dipeptides, Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, 2012.

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

[1]

J. Koblin, Half a Million Viewers For ‘Twin Peaks’ Return, New York Times (2017) C3.

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	BBA - Gene Regulatory Mechanisms
Abbreviation	Biochim. Biophys. Acta Gene Regul. Mech.
ISSN (print)	1874-9399
Scope	Biochemistry Biophysics Genetics Molecular Biology Structural Biology