How to format your references using the Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology. 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

Steig, E. J. (2001). Paleoclimate. No two latitudes alike. Science 293, 2015–2016.

A journal article with 2 authors

Field, B., and Osbourn, A. E. (2008). Metabolic diversification--independent assembly of operon-like gene clusters in different plants. Science 320, 543–547.

A journal article with 3 authors

Song, C., Havlin, S., and Makse, H. A. (2005). Self-similarity of complex networks. Nature 433, 392–395.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Donley, E. A., Claussen, N. R., Thompson, S. T., and Wieman, C. E. (2002). Atom-molecule coherence in a Bose-Einstein condensate. Nature 417, 529–533.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Gelbaum, B. R. (1995). Modern Real and Complex Analysis. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Cheng, K. S., and Romero, G. E. eds. (2005). Multiwavelength Approach to Unidentified Gamma-Ray Sources: A Second Workshop on the Nature of the High-Energy Unidentified Sources. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

A chapter in an edited book

Vassilakis, V., Panaousis, E., and Mouratidis, H. (2016). “Security Challenges of Small Cell as a Service in Virtualized Mobile Edge Computing Environments,” in Information Security Theory and Practice: 10th IFIP WG 11.2 International Conference, WISTP 2016, Heraklion, Crete, Greece, September 26–27, 2016, Proceedings Lecture Notes in Computer Science., eds. S. Foresti and J. Lopez (Cham: Springer International Publishing), 70–84.

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 Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology.

Blog post

Luntz, S. (2015). Whether You Respond To A Placebo Can Indicate If You’ll Respond To Antidepressants. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/brain/placebo-response-indicates-antidepressant-reaction-embargo-1500-gmt/ [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

Government Accountability Office (2002). Answers to Independence Standard Questions (Superseded by GAO-12-331G) GAO-02-870G, July 2002. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Jha, J. S. (2013). [3+2] Cycloaddition Reaction of Gem-Dicyanoepoxide and Electrophilic Reaction of Ethyl Atropate.

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

Kelly, K. (1972). Is Anybody Here from Albion, Nebraska ? Is Everybody?; Albion, Nebraska -- Ta Dum! -- Celebrates in Great Plains Style. New York Times, TRAVEL AND RESORTSXX1.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Steig, 2001).
This sentence cites two references (Steig, 2001; Field and Osbourn, 2008).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Field and Osbourn, 2008)
Three or more authors: (Donley et al., 2002)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology
Abbreviation	Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.
ISSN (online)	2296-4185
Scope	Biotechnology Bioengineering Biomedical Engineering Histology