How to format your references using the Frontiers in Cardiovascular and Smooth Muscle Pharmacology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Frontiers in Cardiovascular and Smooth Muscle Pharmacology. 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

von Bergmann, K. (2015). Physics. Magnetic bubbles with a twist. Science 349, 234–235.

A journal article with 2 authors

Ferdinand, N. K., and Opitz, B. (2014). Different aspects of performance feedback engage different brain areas: disentangling valence and expectancy in feedback processing. Sci. Rep. 4, 5986.

A journal article with 3 authors

Smith, Z. M., Delgutte, B., and Oxenham, A. J. (2002). Chimaeric sounds reveal dichotomies in auditory perception. Nature 416, 87–90.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Vasanthi, D., Nagabhushan, A., Matharu, N. K., and Mishra, R. K. (2013). A functionally conserved Polycomb response element from mouse HoxD complex responds to heterochromatin factors. Sci. Rep. 3, 3011.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bowling, J. (2011). Diagnostic Dermoscopy. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

An edited book

Russell, C. T. ed. (2009). New Horizons: Reconnaissance of the Pluto-Charon System and the Kuiper Belt. New York, NY: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Hiedanpää, J., and Bromley, D. W. (2016). “Stakeholders,” in Environmental Heresies: The Quest for Reasonable, ed. D. W. Bromley (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK), 73–90.

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 Cardiovascular and Smooth Muscle Pharmacology.

Blog post

Taub, B. (2016). World’s Rarest Great Ape Threatened By Nigerian Highway. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/worlds-rarest-great-ape-threatened-nigerian-highway/ [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). Alternatives for the Bureau of Indian Affairs Public School Financial Assistance Program. 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

Chlarson-Varner, G. (2010). Falls among older adults 65 years and older.

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

Brantley, B. (2017). Musical Theater Loses A Versatile Voice. New York Times, C1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (von Bergmann, 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Ferdinand and Opitz, 2014; von Bergmann, 2015).

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

Two authors: (Ferdinand and Opitz, 2014)
Three or more authors: (Vasanthi et al., 2013)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Cardiovascular and Smooth Muscle Pharmacology
Abbreviation	Front. Pharmacol.
ISSN (online)	1663-9812
Scope	Pharmacology (medical) Pharmacology

Research and Writing Guides