How to format your references using the Briefings in Bioinformatics citation style

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

1. Alexander MH. Chemistry. Chemical kinetics under test. Science 2011; 331:411–412

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Christensen ST, Ott CM. Cell signaling. A ciliary signaling switch. Science 2007; 317:330–331

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Deng H, Gerencser AA, Jasper H. Signal integration by Ca(2+) regulates intestinal stem-cell activity. Nature 2015; 528:212–217

A journal article with 4 or more authors

1. Giese B, Amaudrut J, Köhler AK, et al. Direct observation of hole transfer through DNA by hopping between adenine bases and by tunnelling. Nature 2001; 412:318–320

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Sinzinger S, Jahns J. Microoptics. 2005;

An edited book

1. . Prospects for Chemoprevention of Colorectal Neoplasia: Emerging Role of Anti-Inflammatory Drugs. 2013; 191:

A chapter in an edited book

1. Chatterjee K, Doyen L, Filiot E, et al. Doomsday Equilibria for Omega-Regular Games. Verification, Model Checking, and Abstract Interpretation: 15th International Conference, VMCAI 2014, San Diego, CA, USA, January 19-21, 2014, Proceedings 2014; 78–97

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 Briefings in Bioinformatics.

Blog post

1. Taub B. Scientists Finally Get To Grips With Monkey Language. IFLScience 2016;

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. New Ways of Preparing Data for Computers Could Save Money and Time and Reduce Errors. 1978;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Flores E. An exploratory study on widows’ experiences following the loss of their spouse. 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

1. Gordon MR. U.S. Urges Iraqi Kurds To Put Off Referendum. New York Times 2017; A9

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	Briefings in Bioinformatics
Abbreviation	Brief. Bioinform.
ISSN (print)	1467-5463
ISSN (online)	1477-4054
Scope	Molecular Biology Information Systems