How to format your references using the FEMS Microbiology Letters citation style

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

Altman MS. Chemistry. CO prefers the aisle seat. Science 2010;327:789–90.

A journal article with 2 authors

Lazio TJW, LaRosa TN. Astronomy. At the heart of the Milky Way. Science 2005;307:686–7.

A journal article with 3 authors

Glaser A, Mian Z, von Hippel F. NUCLEAR SECURITY. After the Iran deal: Multinational enrichment. Science 2015;348:1320–2.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Antoci V, Handler G, Campante TL et al. The excitation of solar-like oscillations in a δSct star by efficient envelope convection. Nature 2011;477:570–3.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Durenard EA. Professional Automated Trading. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2013.

An edited book

Ichikawa H, Cho W-D, Satoh I et al. eds. Ubiquitous Computing Systems: 4th International Symposium, UCS 2007, Tokyo, Japan, November 25-28, 2007. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2007.

A chapter in an edited book

Stoeglehner G, Narodoslawsky M, Erker S et al. Measures for Integrated Spatial and Energy Planning. In: Neugebauer G, Erker S, Narodoslawsky M (eds.), Integrated Spatial and Energy Planning: Supporting Climate Protection and the Energy Turn with Means of Spatial Planning. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2016, 73–90.

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 FEMS Microbiology Letters.

Blog post

Hale T. Find Out The Origins Of Your Family Name, Along With 45,600 Others. https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/find-out-the-origins-of-your-family-name-along-with-45600-others/ (October 30, 2018, date last accessed)

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. Implementing the Small Business Innovation Development Act--The First 2 Years. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Crumlish SB. Domingo Chileno: An Overture for Orchestra. 2014.

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. Supreme Court to Revisit Federal Sentencing Issues. New York Times. November 4, 2006:A17.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Altman 2010).
This sentence cites two references (Lazio and LaRosa 2005; Altman 2010).

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

Two authors: (Lazio and LaRosa 2005)
Three authors: (Glaser, Mian and von Hippel 2015)
4 or more authors: (Antoci et al. 2011)

About the journal

Full journal title	FEMS Microbiology Letters
Abbreviation	FEMS Microbiol. Lett.
ISSN (print)	0378-1097
ISSN (online)	1574-6968
Scope	Genetics Molecular Biology Microbiology