How to format your references using the Frontiers in Bioscience citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Frontiers in Bioscience (FBS). 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. CE Connor. Neuroscience. Reconstructing a 3D world. Science 298, 376–377 (2002)

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Y Ban; X Chen. Counter-diabatic driving for fast spin control in a two-electron double quantum dot. Sci Rep 4, 6258 (2014)

A journal article with 3 authors

1. H Alle; A Roth; JRP Geiger. Energy-efficient action potentials in hippocampal mossy fibers. Science 325, 1405–1408 (2009)

A journal article with 4 or more authors

1. CD O’Dowd; P Aalto; K Hmeri; M Kulmala; T Hoffmann. Aerosol formation: atmospheric particles from organic vapours. Nature 416, 497–498 (2002)

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. D Chappell. The JCT Design and Build Contract 2005. Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Oxford, UK (2008)

An edited book

1. Eds: A Eberhard; N Hadjisavvas; DT Luc. Generalized Convexity, Generalized Monotonicity and Applications: Proceedings of the 7th International Symposium on Generalized Convexity and Generalized Monotonicity. Springer US, Boston, MA (2005)

A chapter in an edited book

1. S Chincholkar; S Patil; P Sarode; M Rane. Fermentative Production of Bacterial Phenazines. In: Microbial Phenazines: Biosynthesis, Agriculture and Health. S Chincholkar, L Thomashow, eds. , Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (2013)

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 Bioscience.

Blog post

1. J Davis. Does Kissing Really Create A Greater Risk Of Developing Mouth Cancer Than Smoking?, https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/does-kissing-really-create-greater-risk-developing-mouth-cancer-smoking/

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. Astronaut Utilization. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (1993)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. A Prakash. Empire on the Seine: Surveillance, Citizenship, and North African Migrants in Paris (1925–1975), (2010)

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. B Brantley. High Society Soaked in Bathtub Gin, (2017)

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in parentheses:

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	Frontiers in Bioscience
ISSN (print)	1945-0494
ISSN (online)	1945-0508
Scope