How to format your references using the Microbial Cell citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Microbial Cell (MIC). 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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. Fessenden M (2015). The cell menagerie: human immune profiling. Nature. 525(7569): 409–411. 26381986.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Lyons TW, and Reinhard CT (2009). Early Earth: Oxygen for heavy-metal fans. Nature. 461(7261): 179–181. 19741692.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Kassen R, Llewellyn M, and Rainey PB (2004). Ecological constraints on diversification in a model adaptive radiation. Nature. 431(7011): 984–988. 15496923.

A journal article with 30 or more authors

1. Tang M, Pham P, Shen X, Taylor JS, O’Donnell M, Woodgate R, and Goodman MF (2000). Roles of E. coli DNA polymerases IV and V in lesion-targeted and untargeted SOS mutagenesis. Nature. 404(6781): 1014–1018. 10801133.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Cahill TH (2012). Low Impact Development and Sustainable Stormwater Management. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

1. Fusetani N, and Clare AS (2006). Antifouling Compounds. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Su G (2016). Excellence in Education. In: Tayeb O, Zahed A, Ritzen J, editors Becoming a World-Class University: The case of King Abdulaziz University. Springer International Publishing, Cham; pp 57–75.

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 Microbial Cell.

Blog post

1. Luntz S (2015). First Quantum Coherence In Biological Molecule. IFLScience. Available at https://www.iflscience.com/physics/first-quantum-coherence-biological-molecule/ [Accessed 10/30/2018].

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 (1978). Comments on Legislation To Establish a Department of Education. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Schaeffler KP (2015). From Flag Officer to Corporate Leader: A Phenomenological Study of the Influence of Career Transition on Executive Leadership and Professional Identity. Doctoral dissertation, George Washington University.

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. Greenhouse L (2005). Abortion Case May Be Central In Confirmation. New York Times A1.

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	Microbial Cell
Abbreviation	Microb. Cell
ISSN (online)	2311-2638
Scope