How to cite a piece of software in Cell
Research software or a code repository. Style required by Cell Press journals.
Quick answer
To cite a piece of software in Cell, include the author(s), year, title, and container or publisher details. A concrete example is below.
Example
Willighagen, L. citation-js. , — (2024). https://github.com/citation-js/citation-js
This example is rendered with the official CSL definition for Cell. For the exact style required by your journal, paste your references into DEEPNOTIS and pick that style from the dropdown — the app covers 2,800+ variants.
What you need
For a piece of software, Cell expects these fields at minimum:
- Author(s) / maintainers
- Year
- Software name
- Version or commit hash
- Repository URL
- DOI (Zenodo if released)
Common mistakes
- Mixing bibliography formatting with in-text citation rules. Reference-list entries and in-text cites follow different patterns — use the style's official guide for both.
- Forgetting the DOI. When a DOI exists, most styles now require it (usually as a full https://doi.org/… URL).
- Inconsistent capitalization. APA uses sentence case for titles; MLA and Chicago use title case. Mixing them is the single most common style error.
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Last updated: 5 May 2026