How to format your references using the Nature Reviews Microbiology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Nature Reviews Microbiology. 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 references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles 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

Frey, P. A. Enzymology. Coenzymes and radicals. Science 294, 2489–2490 (2001).

A journal article with 2 authors

Hartonen, T. & Alava, M. J. How important tasks are performed: peer review. Sci. Rep. 3, 1679 (2013).

A journal article with 3 authors

Maurer, S. M., Firestone, R. B. & Scriver, C. R. Science’s neglected legacy. Nature 405, 117–120 (2000).

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Björklund, M. et al. Identification of pathways regulating cell size and cell-cycle progression by RNAi. Nature 439, 1009–1013 (2006).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Anderson, D. TKO Management! (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2007).

An edited book

Biology, Controls and Models of Tree Volatile Organic Compound Emissions. vol. 5 (Springer Netherlands, 2013).

A chapter in an edited book

Tan, W., Li, L. & Sun, Y. A Novel Performance Prediction Framework for Web Service Workflow Applications. in Human Centered Computing: First International Conference, HCC 2014, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, November 27-29, 2014, Revised Selected Papers (eds. Zu, Q., Hu, B., Gu, N. & Seng, S.) 55–68 (Springer International Publishing, 2015).

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 Nature Reviews Microbiology.

Blog post

Carpineti, A. Australian Radio Telescope Begins Hunt For Intelligent Alien Life. IFLScience (2016).

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. District of Columbia Charter Schools: Multi-Agency Plan Needed to Continue Progress Addressing High and Disproportionate Discipline Rates. (2017).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Muniyappa, V. K. Performance analysis of IPv4 versus IPv6 in a simple campus network. (California State University, Long Beach, 2012).

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

Crow, K. UPPER WEST SIDE. New York Times 145 (2001).

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

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	Nature Reviews Microbiology
Abbreviation	Nat. Rev. Microbiol.
ISSN (print)	1740-1526
ISSN (online)	1740-1534
Scope	General Immunology and Microbiology