How to format your references using the Biological Reviews citation style

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

Bockrath, M.W. (2012) Chemistry. A single-molecule engine. Science (New York, N.Y.) 338, 754–755.

A journal article with 2 authors

Rignot, E. & Thomas, R.H. (2002) Mass balance of polar ice sheets. Science (New York, N.Y.) 297, 1502–1506.

A journal article with 3 authors

Pettinato, G., Wen, X. & Zhang, N. (2014) Formation of well-defined embryoid bodies from dissociated human induced pluripotent stem cells using microfabricated cell-repellent microwell arrays. Scientific reports 4, 7402.

A journal article with 16 or more authors

Wager, T.D., Rilling, J.K., Smith, E.E., Sokolik, A., Casey, K.L., Davidson, R.J., Kosslyn, S.M., Rose, R.M. & Cohen, J.D. (2004) Placebo-induced changes in FMRI in the anticipation and experience of pain. Science (New York, N.Y.) 303, 1162–1167.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Malamed, C. (2015) Visual Design Solutions. John Wiley & Sons, Inc, Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Borchardt, D., Bogardi, J.J. & Ibisch, R.B. (eds) (2016) Integrated Water Resources Management: Concept, Research and Implementation. Springer International Publishing, Cham.

A chapter in an edited book

Sanna, A. & Monni, G. (2015) Recovery and Reuse of the Architectural and Urban Heritage of Carbonia, a 20th-Century Company Town. Materials for a Handbook. In Built Heritage: Monitoring Conservation Management (eds L. Toniolo, M. Boriani & G. Guidi), pp. 55–67. Springer International Publishing, Cham.

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 Biological Reviews.

Blog post

Hamilton, K. (2016) African Countries Square Up For Battle Over Future Of Ivory Trade Ban. IFLScience. IFLScience. Https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/african-countries-square-up-for-battle-over-future-of-ivory-trade-ban/ [accessed 30 October 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 (1980) NASA Lewis Research Center Attempts To Procure Suitable Wind Turbine Rotor Blades. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Piekielek, J.A. (2009) Public wildlands at the U.S.-Mexico border: Where conservation, migration, and border enforcement collide. Doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.

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

Feeney, K. (2007) Cupcakes a Chicken Can Love. New York Times, NJ12.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Bockrath, 2012).
This sentence cites two references (Rignot & Thomas, 2002; Bockrath, 2012).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Rignot & Thomas, 2002)
Three authors: (Pettinato, Wen & Zhang, 2014)
4 or more authors: (Wager et al., 2004)

About the journal

Full journal title	Biological Reviews
Abbreviation	Biol. Rev. Camb. Philos. Soc.
ISSN (print)	1464-7931
ISSN (online)	1469-185X
Scope	General Agricultural and Biological Sciences General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology