How to format your references using the Trends in Biotechnology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Trends in Biotechnology. 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

Stockman, M.I. (2015) Applied optics. Nanoplasmonic sensing and detection. Science 348, 287–288

A journal article with 2 authors

Gatfield, D. and Schibler, U. (2007) Physiology. Proteasomes keep the circadian clock ticking. Science 316, 1135–1136

A journal article with 3 authors

Nabel, G.J. et al. (2011) Vaccinate for the next H2N2 pandemic now. Nature 471, 157–158

A journal article with 3 or more authors

Horng, T. et al. (2002) The adaptor molecule TIRAP provides signalling specificity for Toll-like receptors. Nature 420, 329–333

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Morgan, A. (2009) Eating the Big Fish, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Tu, J. (2015) Computational Hemodynamics – Theory, Modelling and Applications, Springer Netherlands

A chapter in an edited book

Gay, S.J. (2016) Subtyping Supports Safe Session Substitution. In A List of Successes That Can Change the World: Essays Dedicated to Philip Wadler on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday (Lindley, S. et al., eds), pp. 95–108, Springer International Publishing

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 Trends in Biotechnology.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2014) Common Anti-Anxiety Drug Awakens Patient From Minimally Conscious State. IFLScience. [Online]. [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 (1987) Highway Needs: An Evaluation of DOT’s Process for Assessing the Nation’s Highway Needs, 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

Dillon, K.S. (2009) Social support to families of children with special needs: A grant. Doctoral dissertation, 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

Shear, M.D. and Stolberg, S.G. (2017) Senator Goes From Trump Target to Cheerleader as Some in G.O.P. BoltNew York Times, A16

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	Trends in Biotechnology
Abbreviation	Trends Biotechnol.
ISSN (print)	0167-7799
ISSN (online)	1879-3096
Scope	Biotechnology Bioengineering