UNLV Writing Center American Society of Microbiology (ASM) Format Guidelines

General Format Guidelines ➢ Double space all text, including figure legends, footnotes, and references ➢ Number all pages continuously ➢ All information required to replicate the experiment must be included in the manuscript

Full-Length Paper Guidelines ➢ There are seven main sections in a full-length paper: an abstract, an introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, acknowledgements, and an appendix. ➢ The title page will include the title of the work, the name of each author, and the affiliations of each author at the time of writing. ➢ The abstract is a concise summary of the main content of the paper and should be 250 words or fewer. ➢ The introduction provides enough background information so that the reader will be able to understand the present study without referring to previous studies. ➢ The materials and methods section should provide enough detail so that the experiment can be replicated. ➢ The results section only contains the results of the experiment and may include text, data tables, or figures. ➢ The discussion section should interpret the results in the context of previously published, related work and the present study. This section should not present raw data from the results section. Instead, it should be a comprehensive analysis of the data in the context of the current study and the greater literature. The results and discussion sections may be combined in shorter papers. ➢ The appendix is where any additional, relevant material that will aid the reader’s understanding will go.

Created for UNLV Writing Center by Sotodeh Ebrahimi, 2017 Adapted from: http://aem.asm.org/site/misc/journal-ita_org.xhtml For more handouts visit writingcenter.unlv.edu/writingtips 1

UNLV Writing Center American Society of Microbiology (ASM) Format Guidelines

References ➢ References are numbered in the order they appear in your paper, not alphabetical order. ➢ Include the full last name and first initial of every author and/or editor for each reference. Do not abbreviate with “et al.” ➢ Journal titles must be abbreviated according to the PubMed database (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals) ➢ The following references must be included in the references page. Formulas: Author Last Name First Initials. Year of publication. Title in italics. Abbreviated journal name volume number: pages used

Examples: Caserta E, Haemig HAH, Manias DA, Tomsic J, Grundy FJ, Henkin TM, Dunny GM. 2012. In vivo and in vitro analyses of regulation of the pheromone-responsive prgQ promoter by the PrgX pheromone receptor protein. J Bacteriol 194:3386-3394.

Book

Author Last Name First Initials. Year of publication. Title in italics. Publisher, City.

Madigan MT, Martinko JM, Stahl DA, Clark DP. 2001. Brock Biology of Microorganisms. (13th ed.) Pearson, Boston.

Article in Book

Author Last Name First Initials. Year of publication. Title, p page numbers. In Editor of Book’s Last Name Initials (ed), Title of Book, edition, volume number. Publisher, City. Author Last Name First Initials (if available). Year of publication. Title. Author Last Name First Initials. Year of publication. Title (optional). Institution Name. Author Last Name First Initials. Year of publication. Title. Patent Number. Author Last Name First Initials. Year of publication. Title. Format. Author Last Name First Initials. Year of publication. Title. Pages used. In publication title. Publisher, City.

Forman MS, Valsamakis A. 2011. Specimen collection, transport, and processing: virology, p 1276-1288. In Versalovic J, Carroll KC, Jorgensen JH, Funke G, Landry ML, Warnock DW (ed), Manual of clinical microbiology, 10th ed, vol 2. ASM Press, Washington, DC. Fassler, J. 2011. BLAST Glossary. U.S. National Library of Medicine. O'Malley DR. 1998. PhD thesis. University of California, Los Angeles, CA

Journal Article

Website Dissertation

Patent Presentation or Lecture Conference Proceedings

Odell JC. April 1970. Process for batch culturing. US patent 484,363,770 Smith J. 2012. How to be a scientist. PowerPoint. Green PN, Hood D, Dow CS. 1984. Taxonomic status of some methylotrophic bacteria, p 251-254. In Crawford RL, Hanson RS (ed), Microbial growth on C1 compounds. Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium. American Society for Microbiology, Washington, DC. Created for UNLV Writing Center by Sotodeh Ebrahimi, 2017 Adapted from: http://aem.asm.org/site/misc/journal-ita_org.xhtml For more handouts visit writingcenter.unlv.edu/writingtips 2

UNLV Writing Center American Society of Microbiology (ASM) Format Guidelines

Example References Page

In-Text Citations ➢ In-text citations should include the sequential number of the reference, as it appears on the references page. ▪

Selective media are used to bolster the growth of a certain organism while inhibiting the growth of others (1).

➢ In-text citations should be put in parentheses next to the quoted or paraphrased material. ➢ Certain references should be cited in-text instead of on the references page. These include: ▪

Unpublished data o

▪

Manuscripts submitted for publication o

▪

. . . in a process described above (E. Ramirez and G. Schneider, unpublished data)

... system was used (J. L. McInerney, A. F. Holden, and P. N. Brighton, submitted for publication).

Unpublished conference presentations o

... as described previously (M. G. Gordon and F. L. Rattner, presented at the Fourth Symposium on Food Microbiology, Overton, IL, 13 to 15 June 1989).

▪

Patent applications and patents pending o

.. this new process (V. R. Smoll, 20 June 1999, Australian Patent Office).

Created for UNLV Writing Center by Sotodeh Ebrahimi, 2017 Adapted from: http://aem.asm.org/site/misc/journal-ita_org.xhtml For more handouts visit writingcenter.unlv.edu/writingtips 3