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

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

Supari, S. F. (2007). Q&A: Siti Fadilah Supari. Interviewed by Declan Butler. Nature 450, 1137.

A journal article with 2 authors

Gribble, P. L., and Scott, S. H. (2002). Overlap of internal models in motor cortex for mechanical loads during reaching. Nature 417, 938–941.

A journal article with 3 authors

Batista, F. D., Iber, D., and Neuberger, M. S. (2001). B cells acquire antigen from target cells after synapse formation. Nature 411, 489–494.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

MacLaren, R. E., Pearson, R. A., MacNeil, A., Douglas, R. H., Salt, T. E., Akimoto, M., et al. (2006). Retinal repair by transplantation of photoreceptor precursors. Nature 444, 203–207.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Parke, R. D. (2013). Future Families. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

An edited book

Clément, G. (2008). Neuroscience in Space. 1st ed. , ed. M. F. Reschke New York, NY: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Chini, D., Pirri, F., Pettenati, M. C., Innocenti, S., and Ciofi, L. (2010). “InterDataNet Naming System: A Scalable Architecture for Managing URIs of Heterogeneous and Distributed Data with Rich Semantics,” in Future Internet - FIS 2009: Second Future Internet Symposium, FIS 2009, Berlin, Germany, September 1-3, 2009 Lecture Notes in Computer Science., eds. T. Zseby, R. Savola, and M. Pistore (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer), 36–45.

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 Communication.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2015). Sugary Drinks may Contribute to Almost 200,000 Deaths Worldwide each Year. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/sugary-drinks-may-contribute-almost-200000-deaths-worldwide-each-year/ [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 (2012). Social Security Administration: Improved Planning and Performance Measures Are Needed to Help Ensure Successful Technology Modernization. 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

Kotamreddy, A. (2017). Design and Simulation of 16 Psk Super Regenerative Receiver.

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

Vecsey, G. (2015). A Title Once Held by Ruth and Berra Now Belongs to . . . New York Times, B8.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Supari, 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Gribble and Scott, 2002; Supari, 2007).

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

Two authors: (Gribble and Scott, 2002)
Three or more authors: (MacLaren et al., 2006)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Communication
Abbreviation	Front. Commun.
ISSN (online)	2297-900X
Scope

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