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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Forensic Science International: Genetics. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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]

N. Savage, Early detection: Spotting the first signs, Nature 471 (2011) S14-5.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

A. Boetius, S. Joye, Ecology. Thriving in salt, Science 324 (2009) 1523–1525.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

D. Kessler, K. Gase, I.T. Baldwin, Field experiments with transformed plants reveal the sense of floral scents, Science 321 (2008) 1200–1202.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

A. Meibom, N.H. Sleep, C.P. Chamberlain, R.G. Coleman, R. Frei, M.T. Hren, J.L. Wooden, Re-Os isotopic evidence for long-lived heterogeneity and equilibration processes in the Earth’s upper mantle, Nature 419 (2002) 705–708.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

A. Kontush, M.J. Chapman, High-Density Lipoproteins, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2011.

An edited book

[1]

V.P. Shah, H.I. Maibach, J. Jenner, eds., Topical Drug Bioavailability, Bioequivalence, and Penetration, 2nd ed. 2014, Springer, New York, NY, 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

D. Basso, F. Pesarin, L. Salmaso, A. Solari, Nonparametric One-Way ANOVA, in: L. Salmaso, F. Pesarin, D. Basso (Eds.), Permutation Tests for Stochastic Ordering and ANOVA: Theory and Applications with R, Springer, New York, NY, 2009: pp. 105–132.

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: Genetics.

Blog post

[1]

E. Andrew, Not all GMO Plants Are Created Equally: It’s The Trait, Not The Method, That’s Important, IFLScience (2015). https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/not-all-gmo-plants-are-created-equally-its-trait-not-method-thats-important/ (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, Air Traffic Control: Better Guidance Needed for Deciding Where to Locate Facilities and Equipment, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1994.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

S. Pahuja, Bandwidth feedback effects on retained movements in young and old adults, Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, 2013.

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]

P.S. Dominus, Cambio de vidas: Los hermanos perdidos de Bogotá, New York Times (2015) MM34.

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: Genetics
Abbreviation	Forensic Sci. Int. Genet.
ISSN (print)	1872-4973
Scope	Genetics Pathology and Forensic Medicine