How to format your references using the Frontiers in Cognitive Science citation style

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

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
Manasse, H. R., Jr (2005). Public health. Conscientious objection and the pharmacist. Science 308, 1558–1559.
A journal article with 2 authors
Gombosi, T. I., and Hansen, K. C. (2005). Saturn’s variable magnetosphere. Science 307, 1224–1226.
A journal article with 3 authors
Catling, D. C., Zahnle, K. J., and McKay, C. (2001). Biogenic methane, hydrogen escape, and the irreversible oxidation of early Earth. Science 293, 839–843.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
Laurén, J., Gimbel, D. A., Nygaard, H. B., Gilbert, J. W., and Strittmatter, S. M. (2009). Cellular prion protein mediates impairment of synaptic plasticity by amyloid-beta oligomers. Nature 457, 1128–1132.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Temple, L. P., III (2013). Implosion. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
Hoque, N., and Swanson, D. A. eds. (2012). Opportunities and Challenges for Applied Demography in the 21st Century. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.
A chapter in an edited book
Pastor, Ó., Ruiz, M., and España, S. (2013). “From Requirements to Code: A Full Model-Driven Development Perspective,” in Software and Data Technologies: 6th International Conference, ICSOFT 2011, Seville, Spain, July 18-21, 2011. Revised Selected Papers, eds. M. J. Escalona, J. Cordeiro, and B. Shishkov (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer), 56–70.

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 Cognitive Science.

Blog post
Davis, J. (2016). Researchers Have Found The Bacteria Responsible For The Great Plague Of London. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/researchers-have-found-the-bacteria-responsible-for-the-great-plague-of-london/ (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 (1976). Problems Associated With D.C. Public Schools Payroll Reporting System. 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
Evans, M. D. (2014). A Correlational Analysis of Teacher Observation Scores and Student Achievement. St. Charles, MO: Lindenwood University.

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
Codrea-Rado, A. (2017). Pharrell Williams Kneels in Protest. New York Times, C3.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Manasse, 2005).
This sentence cites two references (Gombosi and Hansen, 2005; Manasse, 2005).

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

  • Two authors: (Gombosi and Hansen, 2005)
  • Three or more authors: (Laurén et al., 2009)

About the journal

Full journal titleFrontiers in Cognitive Science
AbbreviationFront. Psychol.
ISSN (online)1664-1078
ScopeGeneral Psychology

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