MCB 133L: Physiology and Cell Biology Laboratory

Basic elements of journal article citations

1. Author name(s)
2. Publication year
3. Article title
4. Journal title
5. Volume number
6. Issue number (omitted for many citation styles in the sciences)
7. Page numbers (for articles published both in print and online) or article number (for online-only articles)
8. For sources published online: URL or DOI (omitted for some citation styles)

Citation Styles

There are hundreds of different citation styles. Here is the same citation formatted in three different scientific citation styles. Note the differences in the order, format and punctuation of the elements of the citation; also note that styles vary in whether they include the issue number or the DOI, and whether or not they abbreviate the journal name:

The journal Nature:
Brar, G. A. & Weissman, J. S. Ribosome profiling reveals the what, when, where and how of protein synthesis. Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol. 16, 651-664 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm4069
Guide to Nature citation style: https://www.nature.com/nature/for-authors/formatting-guide

The journal BioScience:
Brar GA, Weissman JS. 2015. Ribosome profiling reveals the what, when, where and how of protein synthesis. Nature Reviews. Molecular Cell Biology 16: 651-664.
Guide to BioScience citation style: https://static.primary.prod.gcms.the-infra.com/static/site/bioscience/document/2015-bioscience-style-guide.doc

The Journal of Cell Biology:
Brar, G.A., and J.S. Weissman. 2015. Ribosome profiling reveals the what, when, where and how of protein synthesis. Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol. 16:651-664. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm4069
Guide to Journal of Cell Biology citation style: https://rupress.org/jcb/pages/reference-guidelines

Citing sources in Journal of Cell Biology style

Journal articles, books, manuals

In-text citations

One author: (Lujan, 2022)
Two authors: (Sun and Li, 2025)
More than two authors: (Nath et al., 2025)
Group author: (MCB 133L instructors and staff, 2025)

Reference list

Journal article with page numbers

Kern, D.M., B. Sorum, S.S. Mali, C.M. Hoel, S. Sridharan, J.P. Remis, D.B. Toso, A. Kotecha, D.M. Bautista, and S.G. Brohawn. 2021. Cryo-EM structure of SARS-CoV-2 ORF3a in lipid nanodiscs. Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol. 28:573–582. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41594-021-00619-0

Journal article with article number

Kotov, A., S. Seal, M. Alkobtawi, V. Kappès, S.M. Ruiz, H. Arbès, R.M. Harland, L. Peshkin, and A.H. Monsoro-Burq. 2024. A time-resolved single-cell roadmap of the logic driving anterior neural crest diversification from neural border to migration stages. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 121:e2311685121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2311685121

Journal article with page numbers and article number

Cadart, C., J. Bartz, G. Oaks, M.Z. Liu, and R. Heald. 2023. Polyploidy in Xenopus lowers metabolic rate by decreasing total cell surface area. Curr. Biol. 33:1744-1752.e7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.03.071

Book

Hammond, C. 2024. Cellular and Molecular Neurophysiology, 5th ed. Academic Press, San Diego, CA. 581 pp.

Book chapter from edited volume

Smolka, J.A., and S.C. Lewis. 2023. In situ analysis of mitochondrial DNA synthesis using metabolic labeling coupled to fluorescence microscopy. In Mitochondrial DNA: Methods and Protocols. T.J. Nicholls, J.P. Uhler, and M. Falkenberg, editors. Springer US, New York, NY. 99–106. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2922-2_8

Lab manual for MCB 133L

MCB 133L instructors and staff. 2025. Experiment 3: Protein purification. In MCB 133L Lab Manual Spring 2025. University of California, Berkeley.

Websites and databases

WormBase

To cite information from wormbase.org, include the version number, and cite the most recent WormBase publication or the publication for a specific part of WormBase. For details see:

In-text citation

Example: WormBase version WS296 (Sternberg et al., 2024)

To cite information from a specific gene page, include the persistent "get" form of the URL for the page before the in-text citation. A "get" URL takes the form http://www.wormbase.org/db/get?name=NAME;class=CLASS, where for a URL in the form http://www.wormbase.org/species/c_elegans/gene/WBGene00006763, the class=gene and the name=WBGene00006763. See the following example:

Information on the features of the C. elegans unc-26 gene was derived from the Gene >> unc-26 page (http://www.wormbase.org/db/get?name=WBGene00006763;class=Gene), WormBase version WS296 (Sternberg et al., 2024).

Reference list

Sternberg, P.W., K. Van Auken, Q. Wang, A. Wright, K. Yook, M. Zarowiecki, V. Arnaboldi, A. Becerra, S. Brown, S. Cain, J. Chan, W.J. Chen, J. Cho, P. Davis, S. Diamantakis, S. Dyer, D. Grigoriadis, C.A. Grove, T. Harris, K. Howe, R. Kishore, R. Lee, I. Longden, M. Luypaert, H.-M. Müller, P. Nuin, M. Quinton-Tulloch, D. Raciti, T. Schedl, G. Schindelman, and L. Stein. 2024. WormBase 2024: status and transitioning to Alliance infrastructure. Genetics. 227:iyae050. https://doi.org/10.1093/genetics/iyae050

BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool)

To reference a specific BLAST search, include the type of BLAST search, the accession numbers of any database sequences used in the search, and cite the most recent publication for the relevant BLAST program. For searches using the NCBI Web BLAST interface (https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi) please use the following:

In-text citation

• Nucleotide BLAST (BLASTn, tBLASTn): (Altschul et al., 1990)
• Protein BLAST (tBLASTx, BLASTp): (Altschul et al., 1997)

Reference list

• Nucleotide BLAST:

Altschul, S.F., W. Gish, W. Miller, E.W. Myers, and D.J. Lipman. 1990. Basic local alignment search tool. J. Mol. Biol. 215:403–410. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-2836(05)80360-2

• Protein BLAST:

Altschul, S.F., T.L. Madden, A.A. Schäffer, J. Zhang, Z. Zhang, W. Miller, and D.J. Lipman. 1997. Gapped BLAST and PSI-BLAST: a new generation of protein database search programs. Nucleic Acids Res. 25:3389–3402. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/25.17.3389