How to format your references using the BioTechniques citation style

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

McKee, M. 2012. Sally Ride (1951-2012). Nature 488:460.

A journal article with 2 authors

Sahakian, B., and S. Morein-Zamir. 2007. Professor’s little helper. Nature 450:1157–1159.

A journal article with 3 authors

Whitmarsh, R.B., G. Manatschal, and T.A. Minshull. 2001. Evolution of magma-poor continental margins from rifting to seafloor spreading. Nature 413:150–154.

A journal article with 10 or more authors

Potok, R.M., I.G. Rau, H. Shtrikman, Y. Oreg, and D. Goldhaber-Gordon. 2007. Observation of the two-channel Kondo effect. Nature 446:167–171.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Furmston, M. 2008. Powell-Smith & Furmston’s Building Contract Casebook (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing).

An edited book

2016. Educational Development in Western China: Towards Quality and Equity (Rotterdam: SensePublishers).

A chapter in an edited book

Capezuti, E.A., P. Ursomanno, M. Boltz, and H. Kim. 2011. Geriatric Models of Care. In Cardiothoracic Surgery in the Elderly: Evidence-Based Practice, M.R. Katlic, ed. (New York, NY: Springer), pp. 43–56.

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 BioTechniques.

Blog post

Carpineti, A. 2017. Curiosity Takes A Deeper Look At The Sand Dunes Of Mars (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. 1993. Vocational Education: Status in School Year 1990-91 and Early Signs of Change at Secondary Level (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

Slabaugh, J.L. 2012. The Occurrence of Alternans and Arrhythmias in a Multicellular, Cardiac Preparation. Doctoral dissertation. Ohio State University.

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

Greenhouse, L. 2006. Justice Recalls Treats Laced With Poison. New York Times A29.

In-text citations

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

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	BioTechniques
Abbreviation	Biotechniques
ISSN (print)	0736-6205
ISSN (online)	1940-9818
Scope	General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology Biotechnology