How to format your references using the The Protein Journal citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The Protein Journal. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Nowak MA (2008) Generosity: A winner’s advice. Nature 456:579

A journal article with 2 authors

Takken FLW, Tameling WIL (2009) To nibble at plant resistance proteins. Science 324:744–746

A journal article with 3 authors

Gao Y, Chen G, Chan RHM (2014) Naming game on networks: let everyone be both speaker and hearer. Sci Rep 4:6149

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Kopp RE, Simons FJ, Mitrovica JX, et al (2009) Probabilistic assessment of sea level during the last interglacial stage. Nature 462:863–867

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bragg SM (2010) Cost Reduction Analysis. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Fromm J (2013) Cellular Aspects of Wood Formation. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

A chapter in an edited book

Malanowski N (2008) Matching Demand and Supply: Future Technologies for Active Ageing in Europe. In: Kohlbacher F, Herstatt C (eds) The Silver Market Phenomenon: Business Opportunities in an Era of Demographic Change. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 41–53

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 The Protein Journal.

Blog post

Andrew E (2015) Snowball Earth: New Study Shows Antarctic Climate Even Gripped The Tropics. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/snowball-earth-new-study-shows-antarctic-climate-even-gripped-tropics/. Accessed 30 Oct 2018

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 (1981) Observations on Selected Aspects of School Lunch Program Administration. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Alaiyegbami AO (2014) Porescale Investigation of Gas Shales Reservoir Description by Comparing the Barnett, Mancos, and Marcellus Formation. Doctoral dissertation, University of Louisiana

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) Five Years Later, A Different Outcome. New York Times B14

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	The Protein Journal
Abbreviation	J. Protein Chem.
ISSN (print)	1572-3887
ISSN (online)	1573-4943
Scope	Biochemistry Bioengineering Analytical Chemistry Organic Chemistry