How to format your references using the Forensic Science International citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Forensic Science International. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Download the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

[1]

J.-P. Gorvel, Microbiology. Bacterial bushwacking through a microtubule jungle, Science 314 (2006) 931–932.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

C.M. Robinson, J.K. Pfeiffer, Virology. Leaping the norovirus hurdle, Science 346 (2014) 700–701.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

T. Araki, Y. Sasaki, J. Milbrandt, Increased nuclear NAD biosynthesis and SIRT1 activation prevent axonal degeneration, Science 305 (2004) 1010–1013.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

C. Hertlein, L. Helden, A. Gambassi, S. Dietrich, C. Bechinger, Direct measurement of critical Casimir forces, Nature 451 (2008) 172–175.

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

[1]

K. Allman, X.E.D. Nogales, Impact Investment, John Wiley & Sons, Inc, Hoboken, NJ, 2015.

An edited book

[1]

R. Huys, V.K. Jirsa, eds., Nonlinear Dynamics in Human Behavior, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

S.L. Epstein, S. Petrovic, Learning a Mixture of Search Heuristics, in: Y. Hamadi, E. Monfroy, F. Saubion (Eds.), Autonomous Search, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2012: pp. 97–127.

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for Forensic Science International.

Blog post

[1]

D. Andrew, What’s The Point Of Sex? It’s Good For Your Physical, Social And Mental Health, IFLScience (2017). https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/whats-the-point-of-sex-its-good-for-your-physical-social-and-mental-health/ (accessed October 30, 2018).

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

[1]

Government Accountability Office, Overstatement of Contract Target Cost for First Stage of Saturn V Launch Vehicle, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1970.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

T.S. Novak, Vital Signs of U.S. Osteopathic Medical Residency Programs Pivoting to Single Accreditation Standards, Doctoral dissertation, University of South Florida, 2017.

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

[1]

L. Greenhouse, Justices to Hear Case on Use of Union Fees, New York Times (2006) A21.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [1].
This sentence cites two references [1,2].
This sentence cites four references [1–4].

About the journal

Full journal title	Forensic Science International
Abbreviation	Forensic Sci. Int.
ISSN (print)	0379-0738
Scope	Pathology and Forensic Medicine