How to format your references using the Cell Communication and Signaling citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Cell Communication and Signaling. 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. Hengartner MO. Apoptosis. DNA destroyers. Nature. 2001;412:27, 29.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Brown SP, Hestrin S. Intracortical circuits of pyramidal neurons reflect their long-range axonal targets. Nature. 2009;457:1133–6.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Di Toro G, Nielsen S, Pennacchioni G. Earthquake rupture dynamics frozen in exhumed ancient faults. Nature. 2005;436:1009–12.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Hou ST, Jiang SX, Aylsworth A, Cooke M, Zhou L. Collapsin response mediator protein 3 deacetylates histone H4 to mediate nuclear condensation and neuronal death. Sci Rep. 2013;3:1350.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Soustelle M. An Introduction to Chemical Kinetics. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc; 2011.

An edited book

1. Goldstein S, Naglieri JA, editors. Interventions for Autism Spectrum Disorders: Translating Science into Practice. New York, NY: Springer; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Pacheco FT, da Rocha AJ. Ischemic Stroke in Children. In: Hoffmann Nunes R, Abello AL, Castillo M, editors. Critical Findings in Neuroradiology. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. p. 45–53.

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 Cell Communication and Signaling.

Blog post

1. Hamilton K. Hypnotic Time-Lapse Videos Showcase The Seldom Seen Movements of Nature [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/hypnotic-timelapse-videos-nature/. Accessed 30 Oct 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. Space Communications: Better Understanding of Scheduling System Limitations Needed. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1991 Sep. Report No.: IMTEC-91-48.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Beahm AC. The political ecology of tourism development in the Ecuadorian Amazon [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2009.

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. Pilon M. A Lawyer by Day, a Runner Always. New York Times. 2014 Oct 30;B18.

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	Cell Communication and Signaling
Abbreviation	Cell Commun. Signal.
ISSN (online)	1478-811X
Scope	Biochemistry Cell Biology Molecular Biology