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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Molecular Biology and Evolution. 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

Eisenstein M. 2012. Public health: Prevention comes of age. Nature 488:S11-3.

A journal article with 2 authors

Takagi H, Hwang HY. 2010. An emergent change of phase for electronics. Science 327:1601–1602.

A journal article with 3 authors

Tilman D, Hill J, Lehman C. 2006. Carbon-negative biofuels from low-input high-diversity grassland biomass. Science 314:1598–1600.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Canales JP, Nedimović MR, Kent GM, Carbotte SM, Detrick RS. 2009. Seismic reflection images of a near-axis melt sill within the lower crust at the Juan de Fuca ridge. Nature 460:89–93.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bojowald M. 2012. The Universe: A View from Classical and Quantum Gravity. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA

An edited book

Torres DF, Reimer O eds. 2013. Cosmic Rays in Star-Forming Environments: Proceedings of the Second Session of the Sant Cugat Forum on Astrophysics. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer

A chapter in an edited book

Backhaus JG. 2006. The Word of Honour. In: Backhaus JG, Drechsler W, editors. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900): Economy and Society. The European Heritage in Economics and the Social Sciences. Boston, MA: Springer US. p. 87–109.

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 Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Blog post

Andrew D. 2017. Infecting Mosquitoes With Bacteria So They Can’t Infect Us With Viruses Like Zika And Dengue. IFLScience [Internet]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/infecting-mosquitoes-with-bacteria-so-they-cant-infect-us-with-viruses-like-zika-and-dengue/

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. 1995. Tax Systems Modernization: Management and Technical Weaknesses Must Be Corrected If Modernization Is to Succeed. 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

Johnson L. 2017. The Relationship between Mock Jurors’ Locus of Control, Belief in a Just World, and an NGRI Verdict.

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

Stevens M. 2017. Dating Services Move To Block Extremists. New York Times:B3.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Eisenstein 2012).
This sentence cites two references (Takagi and Hwang 2010; Eisenstein 2012).

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

Two authors: (Takagi and Hwang 2010)
Three or more authors: (Canales et al. 2009)

About the journal

Full journal title	Molecular Biology and Evolution
Abbreviation	Mol. Biol. Evol.
ISSN (print)	0737-4038
ISSN (online)	1537-1719
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Genetics Molecular Biology