user69: This FAQ covers how best to link to scientific articles when answering and posting questions on Bio.SE.

How can I easily include a table of references at the end of my answer?
How do I use the DOI project to prevent future dead links?
How can I make sure that my use of references is valuable to the community?


user154: How can I make sure that my use of references is valuable to the community?
When available, provide a link to a PDF that is freely available without subscription. 
For many popular articles, a freely available PDF version of an article can be located, e.g. by:

Searching google for the article title in quotes + filetype:pdf  
Searching google scholar, and when the article you want shows up, click the 'all 3 versions' and see if one is in pdf format  

Add the url to the pdf alongside the properly formatted citation, like this; the citation itself links to the doi, followed by a link to a free pdf. 
 - [ **Carmell MA, Girard A, Kant HJG van de, Bourc’his D, Bestor TH, Rooij 
DG de, Hannon GJ**. 2007. MIWI2 Is Essential for Spermatogenesis and Repression 
of Transposons in the Mouse Male Germline. Developmental Cell 12: 503–514.]
(http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.devcel.2007.03.001)[[free PDF](http://exmaplepdflink.pdf)]

Which looks like this: 

 Carmell MA, Girard A, Kant HJG van de, Bourc’his D, Bestor TH, Rooij DG de, Hannon GJ. 2007. MIWI2 Is Essential for Spermatogenesis and Repression of Transposons in the Mouse Male Germline. Developmental Cell 12: 503–514.
[free PDF]


user69: How do I use the DOI project to prevent future dead links?
The Digital Object Identifier System (DOI) is a method of linking to digital material (in our case primarily scientific literature).  DOI links are advantageous as if the content linked to is deleted at one host in the future, the DOI will automatically resolve to another host without having to change the link.
The DOI number for an article is often included on the abstract page.  This should be then appended to the end of the link http://dx.doi.org/.
Example
The article "The tomato genome sequence provides insights into fleshy fruit evolution" from Nature 485, 635–641 (31 May 2012) has a DOI of 10.1038/nature11119 - as given on its abstract page.
The link that should be included in your question/answer should therefore be to:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature11119

Which is resolved as such.
Usage
This system should be used wherever possible.  Users are encouraged to suggest edits to change static links for their appropriate DOI style links.

user430: I have created a CSL citation style for the convenience of users. It can be used in Zotero, Papers, Mendeley, and Qiqqa.
It's an author-date style presenting the bibliography as a marked-down bullet list. If the citation contains a DOI, this is used to construct a dx.doi.org link. If there's no DOI, any URL associated with the citation is used. If no URL is found, the item is presented without a link.
The style is demonstrated below, and can be downloaded here (at the top-right of the code display, right-click the <> symbol and save as...). 
To use the style from Zotero, you must first install it. Then you just select the items you want to include in the reference list, then right-click and choose 'Create bibliography from selected items'. Next choose the 'Biology.SE' from the list, ensure 'export to clipboard' is chosen, and press OK. Now you can paste the reference list at the end of your post.
Example references

 Carmell MA, Girard A, Kant HJG van de, Bourc’his D, Bestor TH, Rooij DG de, Hannon GJ. 2007. MIWI2 Is Essential for Spermatogenesis and Repression of Transposons in the Mouse Male Germline. Developmental Cell 12: 503–514.
Castanotto D, Tommasi S, Li M, Li H, Yanow S, Pfeifer GP, Rossi JJ. 2005. Short hairpin RNA-directed cytosine (CpG) methylation of the RASSF1A gene promoter in HeLa cells. Mol Ther 12: 179–183.
 Joshua-Tor L, Hannon GJ. 2010. Ancestral Roles of Small RNAs: An Ago-Centric Perspective. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology.
 Kawasaki H, Taira K. 2005. siRNA Induced Transcriptional Gene Silencing in Mammalian Cells. Cell Cycle 4: 442–448.
 Morris KV, Chan SW-L, Jacobsen SE, Looney DJ. 2004. Small Interfering RNA-Induced Transcriptional Gene Silencing in Human Cells. Science 305: 1289 –1292.
 Volpe T, Martienssen RA. 2011. RNA Interference and Heterochromatin Assembly. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology 3.


69: <p>This FAQ covers how best to link to scientific articles when answering and posting questions on <a href="https://biology.stackexchange.com/">Bio.SE</a>.</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="https://biology.meta.stackexchange.com/a/285/69">How can I easily include a table of references at the end of my answer?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://biology.meta.stackexchange.com/a/277/69">How do I use the DOI project to prevent future dead links?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://biology.meta.stackexchange.com/a/286/69">How can I make sure that my use of references is valuable to the community?</a></li>
</ul>
 154: <h2>How can I make sure that my use of references is valuable to the community?</h2>

<p>When available, provide a link to a PDF that is freely available without subscription. </p>

<p>For many popular articles, a freely available PDF version of an article can be located, e.g. by:</p>

<ul>
<li>Searching google for the article title in quotes + filetype:pdf  </li>
<li>Searching google scholar, and when the article you want shows up, click the 'all 3 versions' and see if one is in pdf format  </li>
</ul>

<p>Add the url to the pdf alongside the properly formatted citation, like this; the citation itself links to the doi, followed by a link to a free pdf. </p>

<pre><code> - [ **Carmell MA, Girard A, Kant HJG van de, Bourc’his D, Bestor TH, Rooij 
DG de, Hannon GJ**. 2007. MIWI2 Is Essential for Spermatogenesis and Repression 
of Transposons in the Mouse Male Germline. Developmental Cell 12: 503–514.]
(http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.devcel.2007.03.001)[[free PDF](http://exmaplepdflink.pdf)]
</code></pre>

<p>Which looks like this: </p>

<ul>
<li><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.devcel.2007.03.001" rel="nofollow"> <strong>Carmell MA, Girard A, Kant HJG van de, Bourc’his D, Bestor TH, Rooij DG de, Hannon GJ</strong>. 2007. MIWI2 Is Essential for Spermatogenesis and Repression of Transposons in the Mouse Male Germline. Developmental Cell 12: 503–514.</a>
[<a href="http://exmaplepdflink.pdf" rel="nofollow">free PDF</a>]</li>
</ul>
 69: <h1>How do I use the DOI project to prevent future dead links?</h1>
<p><a href="http://www.doi.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">The Digital Object Identifier System</a> (DOI) is a method of linking to digital material (in our case primarily scientific literature).  DOI links are advantageous as if the content linked to is deleted at one host in the future, the DOI will automatically resolve to another host without having to change the link.</p>
<p>The DOI number for an article is often included on the abstract page.  This should be then appended to the end of the link <code>http://dx.doi.org/</code>.</p>
<p><strong>Example</strong></p>
<p>The article &quot;<em>The tomato genome sequence provides insights into fleshy fruit evolution</em>&quot; from <em>Nature 485, 635–641 (31 May 2012)</em> has a DOI of <code>10.1038/nature11119</code> - as given on its abstract page.</p>
<p>The link that should be included in your question/answer should therefore be to:</p>
<pre><code>http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature11119
</code></pre>
<p>Which is resolved <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature11119" rel="nofollow noreferrer">as such</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Usage</strong></p>
<p>This system should be used <em>wherever possible</em>.  Users are encouraged to suggest edits to change static links for their appropriate DOI style links.</p>
 430: <p>I have created a <a href="http://citationstyles.org/" rel="nofollow">CSL citation style</a> for the convenience of users. It can be used in <a href="http://www.zotero.org" rel="nofollow">Zotero</a>, <a href="http://www.mekentosj.com/papers/" rel="nofollow">Papers</a>, <a href="http://www.mendeley.com/" rel="nofollow">Mendeley</a>, and <a href="http://www.qiqqa.com/" rel="nofollow">Qiqqa</a>.</p>

<p>It's an author-date style presenting the bibliography as a marked-down bullet list. If the citation contains a DOI, this is used to construct a dx.doi.org link. If there's no DOI, any URL associated with the citation is used. If no URL is found, the item is presented without a link.</p>

<p>The style is demonstrated below, and <a href="https://gist.github.com/Blahah/5681588" rel="nofollow">can be downloaded here</a> (at the top-right of the code display, right-click the &lt;> symbol and save as...). </p>

<p>To use the style from Zotero, you must <a href="http://www.zotero.org/support/styles" rel="nofollow">first install it</a>. Then you just select the items you want to include in the reference list, then right-click and choose 'Create bibliography from selected items'. Next choose the 'Biology.SE' from the list, ensure 'export to clipboard' is chosen, and press OK. Now you can paste the reference list at the end of your post.</p>

<p><strong>Example references</strong><br></p>

<ul>
<li><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.devcel.2007.03.001" rel="nofollow"> <strong>Carmell MA, Girard A, Kant HJG van de, Bourc’his D, Bestor TH, Rooij DG de, Hannon GJ</strong>. 2007. MIWI2 Is Essential for Spermatogenesis and Repression of Transposons in the Mouse Male Germline. Developmental Cell 12: 503–514.</a></li>
<li><strong>Castanotto D, Tommasi S, Li M, Li H, Yanow S, Pfeifer GP, Rossi JJ</strong>. 2005. Short hairpin RNA-directed cytosine (CpG) methylation of the RASSF1A gene promoter in HeLa cells. Mol Ther 12: 179–183.</li>
<li><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/cshperspect.a003772" rel="nofollow"> <strong>Joshua-Tor L, Hannon GJ</strong>. 2010. Ancestral Roles of Small RNAs: An Ago-Centric Perspective. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.4161/cc.4.3.1520" rel="nofollow"> <strong>Kawasaki H, Taira K</strong>. 2005. siRNA Induced Transcriptional Gene Silencing in Mammalian Cells. Cell Cycle 4: 442–448.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1101372" rel="nofollow"> <strong>Morris KV, Chan SW-L, Jacobsen SE, Looney DJ</strong>. 2004. Small Interfering RNA-Induced Transcriptional Gene Silencing in Human Cells. Science 305: 1289 –1292.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/cshperspect.a003731" rel="nofollow"> <strong>Volpe T, Martienssen RA</strong>. 2011. RNA Interference and Heterochromatin Assembly. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology 3.</a></li>
</ul>
