How to format your references using the Frontiers in Cancer Molecular Targets and Therapeutics citation style

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

Whates, I. (2007). A piratical sabbatical. Nature 448, 224.

A journal article with 2 authors

Macosko, E. Z., and McCarroll, S. A. (2013). Genetics. Our fallen genomes. Science 342, 564–565.

A journal article with 3 authors

Fried, S. D., Bagchi, S., and Boxer, S. G. (2014). Extreme electric fields power catalysis in the active site of ketosteroid isomerase. Science 346, 1510–1514.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Inoue, K., Kohda, T., Sugimoto, M., Sado, T., Ogonuki, N., Matoba, S., et al. (2010). Impeding Xist expression from the active X chromosome improves mouse somatic cell nuclear transfer. Science 330, 496–499.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Durbin, P. A., and Reif, B. A. P. (2010). Statistical Theory and Modeling for Turbulent Flows. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Liong, M.-T. ed. (2015). Beneficial Microorganisms in Medical and Health Applications. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Wheeler, D. S., Zingarelli, B., and Wong, H. R. (2006). “The Role of Extracellular Heat Shock Proteins in Cellular Inflammation and Injury,” in Yearbook of Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine Yearbook of Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine., ed. J.-L. Vincent (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer), 45–51.

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 Molecular Targets and Therapeutics.

Blog post

Andrews, R. (2016). One Simple Act To Stop Climate Change In Its Tracks – Vote. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/one-simple-act-to-stop-climate-change-in-its-tracks-vote/ [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 (1979). Federal Research Grants: Maintaining Public Accountability Without Inhibiting Creative Research. 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

Wahl, S. E. (2008). Registered nurse preceptorship orientation: A study of the relationship between burnout rates of new graduates and number of preceptors worked with in the clinical orientation phase.

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

Packer, G. (2015). Revolutionary Roads. New York Times, BR1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Whates, 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Whates, 2007; Macosko and McCarroll, 2013).

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

Two authors: (Macosko and McCarroll, 2013)
Three or more authors: (Inoue et al., 2010)

About the journal

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

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