How to format your references using the Frontiers in Cancer Genetics citation style

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

Mandavilli, A. (2005). The coming epidemic. Nature 436, 496–498.

A journal article with 2 authors

Lill, T., and Joubert, O. (2008). Materials science. The cutting edge of plasma etching. Science 319, 1050–1051.

A journal article with 3 authors

Mason, N., Biercuk, M. J., and Marcus, C. M. (2004). Local gate control of a carbon nanotube double quantum dot. Science 303, 655–658.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Amdam, G. V., Csondes, A., Fondrk, M. K., and Page, R. E., Jr (2006). Complex social behaviour derived from maternal reproductive traits. Nature 439, 76–78.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Cronin, R. (2012). Reading Victorian Poetry. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Tao, Y., and Yuan, Y. eds. (2016). Annual Report on the Development of China’s Special Economic Zones (2016): Blue Book of China’s Special Economic Zones. Singapore: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Janesick, V. J. (2016). “Poetic Inquiry,” in Becoming Earth: A Post Human Turn in Educational Discourse Collapsing Nature/Culture Divides, ed. A. B. Reinertsen (Rotterdam: SensePublishers), 31–40.

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 Cancer Genetics.

Blog post

Hale, T. (2017). Beaches In Tasmania Are Glowing A Bright Electric Blue. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/beaches-in-tasmania-are-glowing-a-bright-electric-blue/ (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 (2008). Safe Routes to School: Progress in Implementing the Program, but a Comprehensive Plan to Evaluate Program Outcomes Is Needed. 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

Westgate, M. (2009). La Boutique Fantasque: A full score edition for wind band. Cincinnati, OH: University of Cincinnati.

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

Kenigsberg, B. (2017). A Ranchera Star Who Rejected Convention. New York Times, C5.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Mandavilli, 2005).
This sentence cites two references (Mandavilli, 2005; Lill and Joubert, 2008).

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

Two authors: (Lill and Joubert, 2008)
Three or more authors: (Amdam et al., 2006)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Cancer Genetics
Abbreviation	Front. Oncol.
ISSN (online)	2234-943X
Scope	Cancer Research Oncology