How to format your references using the Current Opinion in Microbiology citation style

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

Munk W: Ocean science. Ocean freshening, sea level rising. Science 2003, 300:2041–2043.

A journal article with 2 authors

Honma T, Goto K: Complexes of MADS-box proteins are sufficient to convert leaves into floral organs. Nature 2001, 409:525–529.

A journal article with 3 authors

Moreira JA, Pacheco JM, Santos FC: Evolution of collective action in adaptive social structures. Sci Rep 2013, 3:1521.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Ashfold MNR, Cronin B, Devine AL, Dixon RN, Nix MGD: The role of pisigma* excited states in the photodissociation of heteroaromatic molecules. Science 2006, 312:1637–1640.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Wells AR, Chiang K: Monetizing Your Data. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2017.

An edited book

Chakraborti S, Dhalla NS (Eds): Proteases in Health and Disease. Springer; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

Fomin FV, Kratsch D: Treewidth. In Exact Exponential Algorithms. Edited by Kratsch D. Springer; 2010:77–100.

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 Current Opinion in Microbiology.

Blog post

Andrew E: Earth’s Sixth Mass Extinction Has Begun, New Study Confirms. IFLScience 2015,

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: Higher Education: Ensuring Quality Education From Proprietary Institutions. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1996.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Wenger MC: Free-choice family learning experiences at informal astronomy observing events. 2011,

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

Brantley B, Morris W: August Wilson: Then. Now. Forever? New York Times 2017,

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	Current Opinion in Microbiology
Abbreviation	Curr. Opin. Microbiol.
ISSN (print)	1369-5274
ISSN (online)	1879-0364
Scope	Microbiology Infectious Diseases Microbiology (medical)