Is CSE the same as CBE?

Yes, historically. The Council of Biology Editors became the Council of Science Editors. Campus handouts still say CBE. The current book is The CSE Manual, 9th edition (2024). Do not follow a 6th-edition CBE photocopy for author cutoffs, cities, or access dates.

Which CSE system should a biology lab report use?

The one the instructor named. If the sheet says "numbered CSE," that is citation–sequence unless it also says to alphabetize the list first (citation–name). Ecology and organismal courses often want name–year. Do not guess from a methods paper you liked.

How many authors does CSE 9 list before et al.?

Five. A work with 6 or more authors lists the first author plus et al. in the end reference. Name-year in-text citations already use first author plus et al for 3 or more authors. The 8th-edition "first 10" rule is retired.

Do I italicize journal names in CSE?

No. CSE end references set journal titles in roman type and abbreviate them. Italics belong to binomials in running text (Homo sapiens) and to a few special title cases, not to J Cell Biol in the reference list.

How do I cite a GenBank or RefSeq sequence in CSE?

Put the full accession.version in the paper (AF123456.2, NM_001349333.1). For a formal end reference, follow NLM's Nucleotide database-record pattern: database, organization, accession, product description, cited date, and URL. Do not cite "GenBank" with no identifier.

How do I cite BLAST or ImageJ in CSE?

Cite the methods paper NCBI or the project names. BLAST 1990 has five authors, so CSE 9 lists Altschul, Gish, Miller, Myers, and Lipman. Gapped BLAST (1997) has more than five, so the end reference is Altschul SF et al. ImageJ is Schneider, Rasband, and Eliceiri, Nat Methods 2012. Do not cite the browser tab.

How do I cite an eLife or PLOS article that has a number instead of pages?

Put the article number in CSE's location slot. The official Quick Guide specimen is Liu et al., Adv Meteorol. 2020:8874869 (citation-sequence) or Adv Meteorol. 8874869 (name-year). Do not import APA's Article eLocator prefix.

Should I cite bioRxiv or the published paper?

Cite the version you used. If the article is now in a journal, cite the journal and the DOI. Keep the preprint only when you are discussing that preprint. CSE 9's official example is Lopez Bernal et al. on medRxiv, tagged [preprint].

Is name-year CSE the same as APA 7?

No. Both put a name and a year in the sentence. APA uses commas, ampersands, sentence-case article titles with italic journal-and-volume, and a 20-author cutoff. CSE name-year uses (Fauci and Lane 2020), abbreviated roman journal titles, year immediately after authors in the list, and a 5-author cutoff. See APA vs CSE.

Does CSE still need the city for Norton or Springer?

Not in the 9th edition. The preface removed place of publication because publishers have multiple locations and the work is findable without the city. An 8th-edition "New York (NY):" line is outdated for a 2026 CSE paper.

How to Cite Biology Sources in CSE Style (CSE Manual 9th ed.) [2026]

Quick Answer: How to Cite Biology Sources in CSE

Open the syllabus or the journal's Instructions for Authors first. Use CSE when that document names The CSE Manual, Scientific Style and Format, CBE, or Council of Science Editors. Pick one system for the whole paper: citation–sequence, citation–name, or name–year. Numbered lists reuse the original number; name–year lists are alphabetical. Journal references put authors (surname then initials, no periods) first, then the article title in sentence case, the journal abbreviated with the ISSN List of Title Word Abbreviations, the year, volume, issue, pages or article number, and a https://doi.org/ link when a DOI exists.

Official CSE 9 templates and first worked rows

Citation-sequence / citation-name journal template:

Author(s). Article title. Journal title. Date;volume(issue):location. URL

Name-year journal template:

Author(s). Date. Article title. Journal title. Volume(issue):location. URL

Citation-sequence book template:

Author(s). Title. Edition. Publisher; year of publication.

Name-year book template:

Author(s). Date. Title. Edition. Publisher.

Official citation-sequence journal:

Haasnoot M, Lawrence J, Magnan AK. Pathways to coastal retreat. Science. 2021;372(6548):1287–1290. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abi6594

Official name-year journal:

Fauci AS, Lane HC. 2020. Four decades of HIV/AIDS—much accomplished, much to do. N Engl J Med. 383(1):1–4. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp1916753

Official name-year in text (two authors):

(Fauci and Lane 2020)

Citation-sequence in the sentence:

Coastal adaptation pathways are already in use.¹

The Quick Guide states the three-system rule in one sentence you can take to a professor who says "just use CSE":

CSE Citation Quick Guide, 9th edition

The CSE Manual presents 3 systems for referring to references (also known as citations) within the text of a journal article, book, or other scientific publication: (1) citation–sequence, (2) name–year, and (3) citation–name.

A DOI-based URL (which starts with https://doi.org/), when available, should be preferred to any other form of URL.

For articles with more than 5 authors, list the first author followed by “et al.”

Journal titles are generally abbreviated according to the List of Title Word Abbreviations maintained by the ISSN International Centre.

What this guide covers—and what it does not

Use this page when the hard part is the biology object: a Nature paper versus the PubMed record that found it, a GenBank accession.version versus the paper that deposited it, a BLAST search versus the Altschul methods paper, a bioRxiv preprint versus the later journal article, or a lab-report methods citation versus the protocol book. For the venue-first choice between CSE and APA, use APA vs CSE or which citation style. Nearby numbered styles are not CSE: medical citation covers AMA 11 and Vancouver/NLM; chemistry citation covers ACS. For a one-source walkthrough, see how to cite a journal article in CSE.

The current authority is The CSE Manual, 9th edition, not a CBE photocopy

Departments still say "CBE style" or "CSE 8th." They mean The CSE Manual, the 2024 successor to Scientific Style and Format, 8th edition (2014). The council renamed the book because users already called it the CSE manual. References live in Chapter 29. The Quick Guide is the public example set; Appendix 29.1 covers journal-title abbreviations. If you are writing for a campus biology lab that still photocopies an 8th-edition handout, three Chapter 29 changes will fail that handout's checklist:

CSE Manual 9th edition, Preface (2024)

One major change in the ninth edition is to the rule on the number of authors to list in end references to documents with 6 or more authors. Under the revised recommendation, only the first author should be named before using “et al,” instead of the first 5 authors.

Under the updated guidelines, access dates are recommended only for online sources for which the date of publication, copyright, or revision cannot be determined. Also removed from end references is the place of publication for book publishers, which has become less relevant because research works are easy to find online and because many book publishers have multiple locations.

The ninth edition recommends digital object identifiers (DOIs) as the preferred uniform resource locators in end references for online documents, when DOIs are available.

Peter J. Olson, one of the Chapter 29 editors, restated the author cutoff in Science Editor:

Science Editor, on CSE 9 Chapter 29

As of the ninth edition, the maximum number of authors listed is 5, and references with 6 or more authors should list only the first author followed by “et al.”

Eighth-edition classroom sheets that list the first 10 authors, demand a city for Springer, and stamp an access date on every DOI are teaching the old book. The 8th-edition online Quick Guide is still hosted at scientificstyleandformat.org; do not mix its 10-author examples with a 9th-edition paper.

The three CSE systems are not interchangeable house styles

End-reference punctuation is almost the same in all three systems. The difference is how the in-text mark works and how the list is ordered. The Quick Guide says the numbered pair is identical except for list order:

CSE Citation Quick Guide, on numbered systems

These 2 systems are identical except for the order in which the end references are listed. In both systems, numbers within the text refer to the end references.

In the citation–sequence system, the end references are listed in the sequence in which they first appear within the text. For example, if a reference by Smith is the first one mentioned in the text, then the complete reference to the Smith work will be number 1 in the end references. The same number is used for subsequent in-text references to the same document.

In the citation–name system, the end references are listed alphabetically by the first author’s surname. Multiple works by the same author are listed alphabetically by title.

Pick the system the syllabus or journal names. Do not mix them in one paper.
System	In-text mark	End-list order	Common biology use
Citation–sequence	Number at first mention; reuse that number	Order of first appearance	Many lab reports and some life-science journals
Citation–name	Number assigned after the list is alphabetized	Alphabetical by first author, then title	Less common on campus; still a CSE option
Name–year	(Surname Year); two authors joined by and	Alphabetical, unnumbered; year after authors	Ecology, evolution, and many organismal journals

The Quick Guide does not lock the numbered mark to superscript versus parentheses. Journals and instructors do. A campus lab that wants superscript ¹ after the period is still CSE citation–sequence; an ICMJE medical paper that wants (1) is Vancouver, not CSE, even when the end reference looks similar.

Journal articles: official CSE 9 examples

The Quick Guide's journal templates sit in the box above. Journal titles are abbreviated. For two authors, the end reference uses a comma and the name–year in-text mark uses and. Name–year in-text et al has no period in the official examples. These rows are official CSE 9 examples, not invented cell-biology papers:

Official CSE 9 journal examples

Citation-sequence, three authors:

Haasnoot M, Lawrence J, Magnan AK. Pathways to coastal retreat. Science. 2021;372(6548):1287–1290. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abi6594

Citation-sequence, more than 5 authors:

Ashraf M et al. Interaction between the distribution of diabetic retinopathy lesions and the association of optical coherence tomography angiography scans with diabetic retinopathy severity. JAMA Ophthalmol. 2020;138(12):1291–1297. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2020.4516

Name-year, two authors:

Fauci AS, Lane HC. 2020. Four decades of HIV/AIDS—much accomplished, much to do. N Engl J Med. 383(1):1–4. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp1916753

Name-year in text, two authors:

(Fauci and Lane 2020)

Name-year in text, three or more:

(Haasnoot et al 2021)

Name-year author cutoff (Quick Guide):

For articles with 3 to 5 authors, list all authors in the end reference; for articles with more than 5 authors, list the first author followed by “et al.” In either case, list only the first author followed by “et al” in the in-text reference.

Biology journals that dropped issue pagination for article numbers use the same location slot. The official Quick Guide specimen is hydrology, not a fake eLife paper; eLife, PLOS Biology, and PeerJ still put the article number where CSE puts location:

Official CSE 9 article-number and same-year pair

Citation-sequence, article number and no volume:

Liu L, Bai P, Liu C, Tian W, Liang K. Changes in extreme precipitation in the Mekong Basin. Adv Meteorol. 2020:8874869. https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/8874869

Name-year, article number:

Liu L, Bai P, Liu C, Tian W, Liang K. 2020. Changes in extreme precipitation in the Mekong Basin. Adv Meteorol. 8874869. https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/8874869

Name-year same authors, same year (official 2020a):

Lee SMC et al. 2020a. Arterial structure and function during and after long-duration spaceflight. J Appl Physiol. 129(1):108–123. https://doi.org/10.1152/japplphysiol.00550.2019

Name-year same authors, same year (official 2020b):

Lee SMC et al. 2020b. Efficacy of gradient compression garments in the hours after long-duration spaceflight. Front Physiol. 11:784. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2020.00784

Name-year in text, both works:

(Lee et al 2020a, 2020b)

Notice the 9th-edition details students still get wrong. Initials have no periods and no spaces (Fauci AS, not Fauci, A. S.). The article title is sentence case. There is no extra period after the DOI URL. Same-year works by the same authors take 2020a and 2020b. An article number is not an APA eLocator prefix; CSE writes the number after the colon (numbered systems) or after the journal title (name–year).

A real genetics paper formatted the same way—this is Watson and Crick (1953), not a CSE Quick Guide sample—looks like this in citation–sequence:

Worked CSE 9 rendering of a real Nature paper

Watson JD, Crick FH. Molecular structure of nucleic acids: a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid. Nature. 1953;171(4356):737–738. https://doi.org/10.1038/171737a0

Finding that PDF in PubMed or Web of Science does not make PubMed the source. Cite Nature. Look up the abbreviation in the ISSN LTWA or the NLM Catalog; do not invent Nat. or J Cell Bio. Prefer the DOI. If you only have a PMID, find the DOI before you format the reference.

Books and chapters: city of publication is gone

CSE 9 book references drop the city that 8th-edition handouts still demand. These rows are official CSE 9 examples, including two biology titles (Reiss and Ruse; Klarsfeld and Revah) and the official mitochondrial-biogenesis translation:

Official CSE 9 book and chapter examples

Name-year, two authors:

Reiss MJ, Ruse M. 2023. The new biology: a battle between mechanism and organicism. Harvard University Press.

Name-year in text:

(Reiss and Ruse 2023)

Citation-sequence, translated book:

Klarsfeld A, Revah F. The biology of death: origins of mortality. Brady L, translator. Cornell University Press; 2003.

Citation-sequence, translator and editor (official mitochondrial title):

Luzikov VN. Mitochondrial biogenesis and breakdown. Galkin AV, translator; Roodyn DB, editor. Consultants Bureau; 1985.

Citation-sequence chapter, different authors:

Geisslitz S, Scherf K. The holy grail of ancient cereals. In: Boukid F, editor. Cereal-based foodstuffs: the backbone of Mediterranean cuisine. Springer; 2021. p 269–301.

Citation-sequence chapter, same author:

Everard M. Ecosystem services: key issues. Routledge; 2017. Chapter 8, Regenerative landscapes: reversing the cycle; p 141–169.

Citation-sequence online book, more than 5 editors:

Agarwal A et al, editors. Oxford handbook of clinical surgery. 5th ed. Oxford University Press; 2022. https://doi.org/10.1093/med/9780198799481.001.0001

A current cell-biology textbook with more than five authors therefore starts with the first name plus et al., and it does not need "New York". Alberts, Heald, Johnson, Morgan, Raff, Roberts, and Walter is seven names, so CSE 9 truncates:

CSE 9 rendering of a real textbook (7 authors, so et al.)

Alberts B et al. Molecular biology of the cell. 7th ed. W. W. Norton & Company; 2022.

Cite a chapter only when you used that chapter, not the whole book. The official same-author pattern keeps the book title first, then the chapter label and pages. If the chapter has different authors from the book editors, use the Quick Guide's In: Editor, editor. pattern (Geisslitz and Scherf above). Do not cite the campus bookstore PDF filename.

Sequences and databases: cite the accession.version, not "GenBank"

Molecular biology papers fail this more often than journal punctuation. If you used a nucleotide or protein record, the object is that record. The GenBank 2025 update in Nucleic Acids Research states the recoverability rule:

Sayers et al., GenBank 2025 update, Nucleic Acids Research

the best way to cite a GenBank record in a publication is to use the full accession.version identifier for the record.

Their worked identifier is AF123456.2, not AF123456. Searching the unversioned accession returns only the current version, which may have changed since you analyzed it. NLM's NCBI citation page gives the database-record pattern (this is NLM/Citing Medicine wording, not a CSE 9 Quick Guide row):

NLM, How do I cite NCBI services and databases?

Nucleotide [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): National Library of Medicine (US), National Center for Biotechnology Information; [1988] – . Accession No. NM_001349333.1, Homo sapiens FYN binding protein (FYB), transcript variant 4, mRNA; [cited YYYY Mmm DD]. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/NM_001349333.1

Replace the accession, the product description, and the cited date with the version you retrieved. Do not cite "NCBI" or "GenBank" with no accession when the claim depends on a sequence. If the paper you are writing used GenBank as a database rather than one record, cite the current GenBank Nucleic Acids Research update instead of inventing a homepage reference. Protein Data Bank, UniProt, and GBIF work the same way: name the record ID a later reader can open. NLM's page also tells you to cite BLAST from the BLAST references list, not from a screenshot of the search box.

Software and methods papers: cite the algorithm, not the browser tab

A Methods paragraph that says "sequences were searched with BLAST" without a reference is incomplete. NCBI's BLAST help lists the papers to cite. The 1990 algorithm paper has five authors, so CSE 9 lists all five. The 1997 gapped-BLAST paper has seven, so CSE 9 keeps only Altschul plus et al. These rows are CSE 9 renderings of NCBI's recommended citations, not Quick Guide samples:

CSE 9 rendering of NCBI BLAST and ImageJ methods papers

BLAST 1990 (5 authors, so list all):

Altschul SF, Gish W, Miller W, Myers EW, Lipman DJ. Basic local alignment search tool. J Mol Biol. 1990;215(3):403–410. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-2836(05)80360-2

Gapped BLAST / PSI-BLAST 1997 (more than 5 authors):

Altschul SF et al. Gapped BLAST and PSI-BLAST: a new generation of protein database search programs. Nucleic Acids Res. 1997;25(17):3389–3402. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/25.17.3389

ImageJ (Nature Methods; 3 authors):

Schneider CA, Rasband WS, Eliceiri KW. NIH Image to ImageJ: 25 years of image analysis. Nat Methods. 2012;9(7):671–675. https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.2089

Cite the version you ran. If the project's landing page names a preferred citation (ImageJ, R, QIIME 2, FlyBase), use that paper or software reference. Do not invent a release date you never recorded, and do not cite "NCBI BLAST" as if it were a journal article with no authors.

Preprints, dissertations, and websites with no date

CSE 9 added a preprint section. Mark the status in square brackets and keep the server name. When the peer-reviewed version appears, cite the journal article and retire the preprint unless you are discussing the preprint record itself. These rows are official Quick Guide examples:

Official CSE 9 preprint and dissertation

Citation-sequence preprint:

Lopez Bernal J et al. Effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against the B.1.617.2 variant [preprint]. medRxiv 2021. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.22.21257658

Name-year preprint:

Lopez Bernal J et al. 2021. Effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against the B.1.617.2 variant [preprint]. medRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.22.21257658

Citation-sequence dissertation:

Liang S. Transport properties of topological semimetals and non-symmorphic topological insulator [dissertation]. Princeton University; 2020. https://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp01vm40xv52n

Websites still need a date of publication or update when one exists. The two CSE systems do not word the missing-date rule identically. Citation–sequence asks only for an access date; name–year adds the "date unknown" phrase:

CSE Citation Quick Guide, websites

Citation-sequence / citation-name tab:

If no date of publication or update is available, include an access date.

Name-year tab:

If no date of publication is available, use “date unknown” and include an access date.

Official citation-sequence dated website (CDC):

Health equity considerations and racial and ethnic minority groups. US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Division of Viral Diseases; 2020 Apr 30 [updated 2022 Jan 25]. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/health-equity/race-ethnicity.html

Official name-year dated website:

Health equity considerations and racial and ethnic minority groups. 2020 Apr 30. US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Division of Viral Diseases; [updated 2022 Jan 25]. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/health-equity/race-ethnicity.html

Official name-year in text for that page:

(Health equity . . . 2020)

Official name-year undated map:

Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary, Chicago, Illinois. [date unknown]. Google Maps; [accessed 2022 Jan 3]. https://goo.gl/maps/GJALYGBXFZ8TSGK5A

Official name-year in text:

(Montrose Point . . . [date unknown])

Unpublished data stay in the sentence, not in the reference list

Lab groups still try to enter "unpublished data" and hallway conversations as numbered references. CSE 9 keeps them out of the end list:

CSE Citation Quick Guide, personal communication

References to personal communications are placed in running text rather than as formal end references. Permission is usually required and should be acknowledged in an “Acknowledgments” or “Notes” section at the end of the document.

. . . local and systemic reactions were expected to be stronger after the second dose (2022 letter from TD Perez to author; unreferenced, see “Notes”) . . .

Not all forthcoming or unpublished sources are suitable for inclusion in reference lists. Check with your publisher if in doubt.

Write (A. Johnson, unpublished data, 2026) in the sentence if your instructor allows it. Do not invent a numbered end reference for a notebook page nobody else can retrieve. If the data later appear in a paper, thesis, or GenBank record, cite that recoverable object.

Taxonomic names are prose, not a secret fourth citation system

In running text, italicize the binomial: Drosophila melanogaster, Escherichia coli, Homo sapiens. After the first mention, many biology journals accept the abbreviated genus (D. melanogaster). The describing authority—Meigen, 1830 for that fruit fly—is taxonomic nomenclature. It is not a CSE end reference unless you actually read and cite the original description paper. Do not turn Meigen, 1830 into a fake journal article, and do not italicize the authority.

Gene and protein symbols follow the organism's nomenclature body (HGNC for human genes, FlyBase, SGD, and so on), not CSE Chapter 29. CSE tells you how to cite the paper or database record; the symbol style comes from the field.

CSE, APA, Vancouver, or the journal's house style?

Campus biology is not one style. The field page for biology citation styles is the survey; this table is the decision you make for one assignment:

Match the venue. Do not import APA parentheses into a CSE numbered list.
If the document says…	Use	Do not use
CSE, CBE, Scientific Style and Format, or Council of Science Editors	CSE (one of the three systems)	APA author–date punctuation, or Vancouver's (1) as if it were CSE
APA, psychology methods, or a biology-education journal that names APA	APA	CSE name–year. They look related and they are not the same list
ICMJE, Uniform Requirements, NLM, or Vancouver	Vancouver or the medical citation guide	CSE 9's 5-author et al. cutoff or name–year parentheses
Nature, Cell, Science, or PLOS author guidelines	That journal's house style	A generic "biology style" you invented from this page

Science and PNAS are the journals CSE 9 cites as models for the new author cutoff; their own Instructions for Authors still govern manuscripts submitted there. A PLOS ONE paper uses PLOS's numbered Vancouver-like style, not a CSE name–year list. When the syllabus is silent, ask. Then lock one system before you format the first reference.

Failure modes biology students actually hit

Mixing systems. Number 7 in the text cannot point at an alphabetical name–year list. Pick one system and reuse it in every figure caption.
Using the 8th-edition 10-author cutoff. CSE 9 lists at most 5 names, then first author + et al. A 7-author Molecular Biology of the Cell reference is Alberts B et al., not seven surnames.
Inventing journal abbreviations. J. Cell. Biol. with extra periods is not a CSE abbreviation. Use the ISSN LTWA or the NLM Catalog.
Citing the database that found the PDF. PubMed, JSTOR, and the campus proxy are search paths. The source is the journal article.
Leaving the city on every book. CSE 9 dropped place of publication. New York: W. W. Norton & Company; 2022 is the old pattern.
Stamping an access date on every DOI. Access dates remain only when the publication, copyright, or revision date cannot be determined.
Forgetting that name–year websites say date unknown. The citation–sequence tab asks only for an access date. The name–year tab adds [date unknown].
Treating an article number like an APA eLocator. Official CSE writes Adv Meteorol. 2020:8874869 (numbered) or Adv Meteorol. 8874869 (name–year).
Writing a sequence claim with no accession.version. AF123456 is not enough; AF123456.2 is the citable object.
Citing BLAST as a website with no paper. NCBI tells you to cite Altschul 1990 or the later BLAST papers on its references list.
Putting unpublished data in the numbered list. Personal communications and notebook results stay in the sentence.
Formatting a binomial as if it were a reference. D. melanogaster is prose. The paper you read about that fly is the citation.
Citing a review for a specific experimental result. Use the original methods or results paper when the claim is about that experiment.
Omitting software, packages, or published protocols. Cite the version you ran from the project's recommended citation or the methods paper. Do not invent a release you never used.

Format the record you actually captured

A generator can apply CSE punctuation only to the metadata you stored. It cannot invent an issue number, an ISSN abbreviation, or a sequence version. Lock the in-text system first, then format from a complete record—DOI, PMID, or manual fields—in the CSE citation generator.

Generate CSE citations for biology papers

Use citation–sequence, citation–name, or name–year consistently. Search by DOI or PubMed ID, or enter the source you actually opened. The generator will not invent a GenBank version suffix you never recorded.

Try the CSE citation generator →

Biology CSE citation questions

Is CSE the same as CBE?: Yes, historically. The Council of Biology Editors became the Council of Science Editors. Campus handouts still say CBE. The current book is The CSE Manual, 9th edition (2024). Do not follow a 6th-edition CBE photocopy for author cutoffs, cities, or access dates.
Which CSE system should a biology lab report use?: The one the instructor named. If the sheet says "numbered CSE," that is citation–sequence unless it also says to alphabetize the list first (citation–name). Ecology and organismal courses often want name–year. Do not guess from a methods paper you liked.
How many authors does CSE 9 list before et al.?: Five. A work with 6 or more authors lists the first author plus et al. in the end reference. Name-year in-text citations already use first author plus et al for 3 or more authors. The 8th-edition "first 10" rule is retired.
Do I italicize journal names in CSE?: No. CSE end references set journal titles in roman type and abbreviate them. Italics belong to binomials in running text (Homo sapiens) and to a few special title cases, not to J Cell Biol in the reference list.
How do I cite a GenBank or RefSeq sequence in CSE?: Put the full accession.version in the paper (AF123456.2, NM_001349333.1). For a formal end reference, follow NLM's Nucleotide database-record pattern: database, organization, accession, product description, cited date, and URL. Do not cite "GenBank" with no identifier.
How do I cite BLAST or ImageJ in CSE?: Cite the methods paper NCBI or the project names. BLAST 1990 has five authors, so CSE 9 lists Altschul, Gish, Miller, Myers, and Lipman. Gapped BLAST (1997) has more than five, so the end reference is Altschul SF et al. ImageJ is Schneider, Rasband, and Eliceiri, Nat Methods 2012. Do not cite the browser tab.
How do I cite an eLife or PLOS article that has a number instead of pages?: Put the article number in CSE's location slot. The official Quick Guide specimen is Liu et al., Adv Meteorol. 2020:8874869 (citation-sequence) or Adv Meteorol. 8874869 (name-year). Do not import APA's Article eLocator prefix.
Should I cite bioRxiv or the published paper?: Cite the version you used. If the article is now in a journal, cite the journal and the DOI. Keep the preprint only when you are discussing that preprint. CSE 9's official example is Lopez Bernal et al. on medRxiv, tagged [preprint].
Is name-year CSE the same as APA 7?: No. Both put a name and a year in the sentence. APA uses commas, ampersands, sentence-case article titles with italic journal-and-volume, and a 20-author cutoff. CSE name-year uses (Fauci and Lane 2020), abbreviated roman journal titles, year immediately after authors in the list, and a 5-author cutoff. See APA vs CSE.
Does CSE still need the city for Norton or Springer?: Not in the 9th edition. The preface removed place of publication because publishers have multiple locations and the work is findable without the city. An 8th-edition "New York (NY):" line is outdated for a 2026 CSE paper.