How to format your references using the Journal of Molecular Cell Biology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Molecular Cell Biology (JMCB). 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

Reitz, S.R. (2007). Ecology. Invasion of the whiteflies. Science 318, 1733–1734.

A journal article with 2 authors

Cane, M.A., and Evans, M. (2000). CLIMATE VARIABILITY: Enhanced: Do the Tropics Rule? Science 290, 1107–1108.

A journal article with 3 authors

Berciu, M. et al. (2005). Manipulating spin and charge in magnetic semiconductors using superconducting vortices. Nature 435, 71–75.

A journal article with 3 or more authors

Hulme, M. et al. (2011). Science-policy interface: beyond assessments. Science 333, 697–698.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Adams, D.J. et al. (2005). Chemistry in Alternative Reaction Media Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

G.P. Picco, and W. Heinzelman (eds) (2012). Wireless Sensor Networks: 9th European Conference, EWSN 2012, Trento, Italy, February 15-17, 2012. Proceedings Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Zúñiga, S. et al. (2006). Regulation of Coronavirus Transcription: Viral and Cellular Proteins Interacting with Transcription-Regulating Sequences. In: The Nidoviruses: Toward Control of SARS and Other Nidovirus Diseases, S. Perlman, and K.V. Holmes (eds). Boston, MA: Springer US, 31–35.

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 Journal of Molecular Cell Biology.

Blog post

Hale, T. (2017). What Do Dogs Dream About? IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/what-do-dogs-dream-about/.

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 (1978). HEW Audits of Federal Grants and Contracts Administered by Institutions of Higher Education 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

Bearden, B.A. (2008). Followership as perceived by leaders in a multidisciplinary healthcare organization. Doctoral dissertation. University of Phoenix.

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

Feeney, K. (2007). Order at the Court. New York Times 14NJ19.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Reitz, 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Cane and Evans, 2000; Reitz, 2007).

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

Two authors: (Cane and Evans, 2000)
Three or more authors: (Hulme et al., 2011)

About the journal

Full journal title	Journal of Molecular Cell Biology
Abbreviation	J. Mol. Cell Biol.
ISSN (print)	1674-2788
ISSN (online)	1759-4685
Scope	Cell Biology Genetics Molecular Biology General Medicine