How to format your references using the Plant Biotechnology Journal citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Plant Biotechnology Journal (PBJ). 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

Knapp, S. (2013) Evolution. What, where, and when? Science, 341, 1182–1184.

A journal article with 2 authors

Honma, T. and Goto, K. (2001) Complexes of MADS-box proteins are sufficient to convert leaves into floral organs. Nature, 409, 525–529.

A journal article with 3 authors

Robinson, C.V., Sali, A., and Baumeister, W. (2007) The molecular sociology of the cell. Nature, 450, 973–982.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Cherian, P.T., Wu, X., Maddox, M.M., Singh, A.P., Lee, R.E., and Hurdle, J.G. (2014) Chemical modulation of the biological activity of reutericyclin: a membrane-active antibiotic from Lactobacillus reuteri. Sci. Rep., 4, 4721.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Muccini, M. and Toffanin, S. (2016) Organic Light-Emitting Transistors. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Fernandes, P.R. and Bartolo, P.J. eds. (2014) Tissue Engineering: Computer Modeling, Biofabrication and Cell Behavior. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

A chapter in an edited book

Ellinger, A.D., Hamlin, R.G., Beattie, R.S., Wang, Y.-L., and McVicar, O. (2011) Managerial Coaching as a Workplace Learning Strategy. In: Supporting Workplace Learning: Towards Evidence-based Practice (Poell,R.F. and Woerkom,M. van, eds) , pp. 71–87. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

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 Plant Biotechnology Journal.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2016) Sea-Level Rise Has Claimed Five Whole Islands In The Pacific: First Scientific Evidence. 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 (1972) Need for a National Earthquake Research Program. 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

Emale, J.M. (2010) An examination of how conglomerates impact small-medium enterprises in their relationship.

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

Vecsey, G. (2011) Another Storm to Weather. New York Times, D1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Knapp, 2013).
This sentence cites two references (Honma and Goto, 2001; Knapp, 2013).

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

Two authors: (Honma and Goto, 2001)
Three or more authors: (Cherian et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Plant Biotechnology Journal
Abbreviation	Plant Biotechnol. J.
ISSN (print)	1467-7644
ISSN (online)	1467-7652
Scope	Agronomy and Crop Science Plant Science Biotechnology