How to format your references using the Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews (MMBR). 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

Ruiz-Casares M. 2014. Mental health: Tailor informed-consent processes. Nature 513:304.

A journal article with 2 authors

Gottlieb RA, Bernstein D. 2015. METABOLISM. Mitochondria shape cardiac metabolism. Science 350:1162–1163.

A journal article with 3 authors

Jamtveit B, Austrheim H, Malthe-Sørenssen A. 2000. Accelerated hydration of the Earth’s deep crust induced by stress perturbations. Nature 408:75–78.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Sugawara K, Hamatani T, Yamada M, Ogawa S, Kamijo S, Kuji N, Akutsu H, Miyado K, Yoshimura Y, Umezawa A. 2014. Derivation of human decidua-like cells from amnion and menstrual blood. Sci Rep 4:4599.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kerzner H. 2017. Project Management Case Studies. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Jansen M. 2005. Second Generation Wavelets and Applications. Springer, London.

A chapter in an edited book

Gourlay L, Oliver M. 2016. It’s Not All About the Learner: Reframing Students’ Digital Literacy as Sociomaterial Practice, p. 77–92. In Ryberg, T, Sinclair, C, Bayne, S, de Laat, M (eds.), Research, Boundaries, and Policy in Networked Learning. Springer International Publishing, Cham.

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 Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews.

Blog post

Andrew E. 2014. Three 16 Year Old Girls Win Top Prize At Google Science Fair For Agricultural Research. IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/technology/google-science-fair-winners-announced/. Retrieved 30 October 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

Government Accountability Office. 2016. Highway Bridges: Linking Funding to Conditions May Help Demonstrate Impact of Federal Investment. GAO-16-779. 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

Hoang V. 2009. Software maintenance: A program slicer using cross referencer. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA.

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

Pilon M. 2012. Men’s and Women’s 800-Meter Teams Are Settled. New York Times.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in parentheses:

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	Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews
Abbreviation	Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev.
ISSN (print)	1092-2172
ISSN (online)	1098-5557
Scope	Molecular Biology General Immunology and Microbiology