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

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

Dalton, R. (2001). Arson hampers conservation work. Nature 411, 509.

A journal article with 2 authors

Kropman, M. F., and Bakker, H. J. (2001). Dynamics of water molecules in aqueous solvation shells. Science 291, 2118–2120.

A journal article with 3 authors

Jop, P., Forterre, Y., and Pouliquen, O. (2006). A constitutive law for dense granular flows. Nature 441, 727–730.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Sakurai, T., Mihaliuk, E., Chirila, F., and Showalter, K. (2002). Design and control of wave propagation patterns in excitable media. Science 296, 2009–2012.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kanel, G. C. (2017). Pathology of Liver Diseases. Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

González, R. G., Hirsch, J. A., Lev, M. H., Schaefer, P. W., and Schwamm, L. H. eds. (2011). Acute Ischemic Stroke: Imaging and Intervention. 2nd ed. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Kana‘iaupuni, S. M., and Else, I. (2005). “Ola Ka Inoa (The Name Lives),” in Learning in Cultural Context: Family, Peers, and School International and Cultural Psychology Series., ed. M. I. Martini (Boston, MA: Springer US), 109–131.

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 Chemistry.

Blog post

Hale, T. (2016). Salt Used To De-Ice Roads Can Make Frogs Change Sex. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/salt-used-to-deice-roads-can-make-frogs-change-sex/ [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 (1998). FCC: Service and Auction Rules for the 38.6-40.0 GHz Frequency Band. 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

Lancelin, D. B. (2017). A Phenomenological Case Study of Teacher Experiences with and Understanding of Instruction Aligned to the CCSS, and their Role in Advancing Equal Educational Opportunities for Students.

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, M. (1992). THE 1992 CAMPIAGN: Undeclared Candidate; Where Perot Exhibits A Lifetime of Memories. New York Times, 18.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Dalton, 2001).
This sentence cites two references (Dalton, 2001; Kropman and Bakker, 2001).

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

Two authors: (Kropman and Bakker, 2001)
Three or more authors: (Sakurai et al., 2002)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Chemistry
Abbreviation	Front. Chem.
ISSN (online)	2296-2646
Scope	General Chemistry