How to format your references using the Mobile Genetic Elements citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Mobile Genetic Elements. 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

Clayton J. Clinical approval: Trials of an anticancer jab. Nature 2012; 488:S4-6.

A journal article with 2 authors

Grünwald D, Singer RH. In vivo imaging of labelled endogenous β-actin mRNA during nucleocytoplasmic transport. Nature 2010; 467:604–7.

A journal article with 3 authors

Tanimura H, Kanasaki J, Tanimura K. State-resolved ultrafast dynamics of impact ionization in InSb. Sci Rep 2014; 4:6849.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Mizuguchi G, Shen X, Landry J, Wu W-H, Sen S, Wu C. ATP-driven exchange of histone H2AZ variant catalyzed by SWR1 chromatin remodeling complex. Science 2004; 303:343–8.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Berthold HJ, Binnewies M. Chemisches Grundpraktikum. Weinheim, FRG: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2005.

An edited book

Moed HF, Glänzel W, Schmoch U, editors. Handbook of Quantitative Science and Technology Research: The Use of Publication and Patent Statistics in Studies of S&T Systems. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2005.

A chapter in an edited book

Suijkerbuijk KPM, van der Wall E, van Diest PJ. Hormone Receptors in Breast Cancer. In: Badve S, Gökmen-Polar Y, editors. Molecular Pathology of Breast Cancer. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. page 45–58.

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 Mobile Genetic Elements.

Blog post

Andrew E. Tree Kangaroos: Real Life Teddy Bears. IFLScience2015;

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. School Meal Programs: Sharing Information on Best Practices May Improve Programs’ Operations. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1997.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Smith KL. Initial construct validation of the color figure mazes test. 2012;

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

Murphy MJO. Opening Night for ‘Arsenic and Old Lace.’ New York Times2015; :C28.

In-text citations

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

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	Mobile Genetic Elements
Abbreviation	Mob. Genet. Elements
ISSN (print)	2159-2543
ISSN (online)	2159-256X
Scope