How to format your references using the Molecular Plant Pathology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Molecular Plant Pathology (MPP). 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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most reference managers.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
Macilwain, C. (2001) Science in a changed world. Nature, 414, 836–837.
A journal article with 2 authors
Wu-Baer, F. & Baer, R. (2001) Effect of DNA damage on a BRCA1 complex. Nature, 414, 36.
A journal article with 3 authors
Vergoz, V., Schreurs, H.A. & Mercer, A.R. (2007) Queen pheromone blocks aversive learning in young worker bees. Science (New York, N.Y.), 317, 384–386.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
Damschen, E.I., Haddad, N.M., Orrock, J.L., Tewksbury, J.J. & Levey, D.J. (2006) Corridors increase plant species richness at large scales. Science (New York, N.Y.), 313, 1284–1286.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Bowers, D., House, A. & Owens, D. (2011) Getting Started in Health Research. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
An edited book
Howe, R., Hunziker, M. & Willenbring, J.F. eds. (2014) Symmetry: Representation Theory and Its Applications: In Honor of Nolan R. Wallach. New York, NY: Springer.
A chapter in an edited book
Webby, R.J., Webster, R.G. & Richt, J.A. (2007) Influenza Viruses in Animal Wildlife Populations. In: Childs, J.E., Mackenzie, J.S., and Richt, J.A. (Eds.) Wildlife and Emerging Zoonotic Diseases: The Biology, Circumstances and Consequences of Cross-Species Transmission Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 67–83.

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 Plant Pathology.

Blog post
Hale, T. (2016) This New Device Can Trick Your Tastebuds To Make Food Taste Better. 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 (1976) Deinstitutionalization of the Mentally Ill in Oregon. 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
Hernandez, A. (2012) Impact of the Child and Family Services Improvement Act of 2006 on monthly caseworker visits to children in Los Angeles County on California’s foster care system. Doctoral dissertation, Long Beach, CA, California State University, Long Beach.

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
Shinn, I.E. (1949) TIE-IN. New York Times, MagazineSM2.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Macilwain, 2001).
This sentence cites two references (Macilwain, 2001; Wu-Baer and Baer, 2001).

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

  • Two authors: (Wu-Baer and Baer, 2001)
  • Three or more authors: (Damschen et al., 2006)

About the journal

Full journal titleMolecular Plant Pathology
AbbreviationMol. Plant Pathol.
ISSN (print)1464-6722
ISSN (online)1364-3703
ScopeAgronomy and Crop Science
Plant Science
Soil Science
Molecular Biology

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