Anatomy of a citation

Within a paper, there are a number of formats for referring to the paper below. The presence of a number (1) refers you to a numbered list of references, some journals favor name, date format such as (Yokoyama et al., 1998). The abbreviation 'et al.' stands for et alia, and means 'and others'; it is used to save space instead of listing all authors. The full list of referenced articles can be found at the end of the article being read.

In the References section of a paper*

1: First author. The lead author in the list is the one who did the bulk of the work represented in the paper. Contributions of the other authors cannot be guessed; it can range from 49% of the work to data or images in a single figure.

2: Author list. Other contributors to the work. In many (but not all) cases, the final name in this list will represent the professor under whose supervision (and sometimes active participation) the work took place.

3:Year of publication. This is when the paper actually appeared, not the year in which the work was done nor the time of first submission.

4: Title of the paper.

5: Journal in which the article appears. May be abbreviated; in this case, the full journal title is "Molecular Biology and Evolution"

6: Volume number of the journal.

7: Pages of the journal on which the article appears.

*: NOTE: while the same information appears in virtually every reference citation, individual journals differ in details. For example, some use authors' first names, some list secondary authors as firstname, lastname, some put article titles in quotes. The order of elements may also differ. Make sure you are aware of the citation style your instructor is assigning and follow it.