How to format your references using the Microbiology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for 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

Chudler EH. SPORE series winner. Resources for anyone interested in the brain. Science 2010;328:1648–1649.

A journal article with 2 authors

Western D, Behrensmeyer AK. Bone assemblages track animal community structure over 40 years in an African savanna ecosystem. Science 2009;324:1061–1064.

A journal article with 3 authors

Murakami S, Nagaosa N, Zhang S-C. Dissipationless quantum spin current at room temperature. Science 2003;301:1348–1351.

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Dimiduk DM, Woodward C, Lesar R, Uchic MD. Scale-free intermittent flow in crystal plasticity. Science 2006;312:1188–1190.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Utas G. Robust Communications Software. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2006.

An edited book

Chremmos I, Schwelb O, Uzunoglu N (eds). Photonic Microresonator Research and Applications. Boston, MA: Springer US; 2010.

A chapter in an edited book

Tiňo P. One-Shot Learning of Poisson Distributions in Serial Analysis of Gene Expression. In: Liu D, Zhang H, Polycarpou M, Alippi C, He H (editors). Advances in Neural Networks – ISNN 2011: 8th International Symposium on Neural Networks, ISNN 2011, Guilin, China, May 29–June 1, 2011, Proceedings, Part II. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011. pp. 37–46.

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.

Blog post

Taub B. Learning Music Gives Kids Extra Brain Connections. IFLScience.

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. Title I: Education Needs to Monitor States’ Scoring of Assessments. GAO-02-393; Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1 April 2002.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Cong M. Predictive models of cytotoxicity as mediated by exposure to environmental toxicants and drugs. Doctoral Dissertation; California State University, Long Beach; 2015.

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. Trying to Decipher the Justices on the Current State of the Death Penalty. New York Times, 19 October 2007, p. A21.

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	Microbiology
Abbreviation	Microbiology
ISSN (print)	1350-0872
ISSN (online)	1465-2080
Scope	Microbiology