How to format your references using the Biology Open citation style

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

Schubert, C. (2011). Single-cell analysis: The deepest differences. Nature 480, 133–137.

A journal article with 2 authors

Whalan, S. and Webster, N. S. (2014). Sponge larval settlement cues: the role of microbial biofilms in a warming ocean. Sci. Rep. 4, 4072.

A journal article with 3 authors

Indjeian, V. B., Stern, B. M. and Murray, A. W. (2005). The centromeric protein Sgo1 is required to sense lack of tension on mitotic chromosomes. Science 307, 130–133.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Legname, G., Baskakov, I. V., Nguyen, H.-O. B., Riesner, D., Cohen, F. E., DeArmond, S. J. and Prusiner, S. B. (2004). Synthetic mammalian prions. Science 305, 673–676.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Doyle, J. F. (2005). Modern Experimental Stress Analysis. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Gudmundsson, J. ed. (2008). Algorithm Theory – SWAT 2008: 11th Scandinavian Workshop on Algorithm Theory, Gothenburg, Sweden, July 2-4, 2008. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Jézéquel, J.-M., Barais, O. and Fleurey, F. (2011). Model Driven Language Engineering with Kermeta. In Generative and Transformational Techniques in Software Engineering III: International Summer School, GTTSE 2009, Braga, Portugal, July 6-11, 2009. Revised Papers (ed. Fernandes, J. M.), Lämmel, R.), Visser, J.), and Saraiva, J.), pp. 201–221. Berlin, Heidelberg: 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 Biology Open.

Blog post

O`Callaghan, J. (2015). Fire Fountains on the Moon May Have Been Caused by Carbon Monoxide. IFLScience.

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 (2014). Small Business Research Programs: More Guidance and Oversight Needed to Comply with Spending and Reporting Requirements. Washington, DC: 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

Obi, C. N. (2012). Evaluation of feeding varying levels of digestible lysine on broiler breeder male reproductive characteristics and body weight changes.

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

M’kay, I. P. (1936). REDEFINING POLITICAL TERMS; Need Seen for New Outlook on the Tariff and Isolation. New York Times social news books14.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Schubert, 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Schubert, 2011; Whalan and Webster, 2014).

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

Two authors: (Whalan and Webster, 2014)
Three or more authors: (Legname et al., 2004)

About the journal

Full journal title	Biology Open
Abbreviation	Biol. Open
ISSN (online)	2046-6390
Scope