How to format your references using the Frontiers in Experimental Pharmacology and Drug Discovery citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Frontiers in Experimental Pharmacology and Drug Discovery. 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

Müller-Wille, S. (2007). Plant taxonomy: The love of plants. Nature 446, 268.

A journal article with 2 authors

Bouchon, M., and Vallée, M. (2003). Observation of long supershear rupture during the magnitude 8.1 Kunlunshan earthquake. Science 301, 824–826.

A journal article with 3 authors

Skipper, M., Dhand, R., and Campbell, P. (2012). Presenting ENCODE. Nature 489, 45.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Gao, R., Cui, Y., Liu, X., and Wang, L. (2014). Multifunctional interface modification of energy relay dye in quasi-solid dye-sensitized solar cells. Sci. Rep. 4, 5570.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Brown, T., Andrews, G. J., Cummins, S., Greenhough, B., Lewis, D., and Power, A. (2017). Health Geographies. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Srinivasulu, C. (2012). South Asian Mammals: Their Diversity, Distribution, and Status., ed. B. Srinivasulu. New York, NY: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Kittsteiner, T., and Ockenfels, A. (2008). “On the Design of Simple Multi-unit Online Auctions,” in Negotiation, Auctions, and Market Engineering: International Seminar, Dagstuhl Castle, Germany, November 12-17, 2006, Revised Selected Papers, eds. H. Gimpel, N. R. Jennings, G. E. Kersten, A. Ockenfels, and C. Weinhardt (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer), 68–71.

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 Experimental Pharmacology and Drug Discovery.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2016). River On Fire: Even If It’s Not Coal Seam Gas We Should Still Be Concerned. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/river-fire-even-if-it-s-not-coal-seam-gas-we-should-still-be-concerned/ (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 (1974). Expenditures of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for Public Relations Activities. 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

Spratley, A. M. (2010). Connecting Law and Creativity: The Role of Lawyers in Supporting Creative and Innovative Economic Development. Washington, DC: George Washington 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

Kelly, M. (1992). THE 1992 CAMPAIGN: 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 (Müller-Wille, 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Bouchon and Vallée, 2003; Müller-Wille, 2007).

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

Two authors: (Bouchon and Vallée, 2003)
Three or more authors: (Gao et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Experimental Pharmacology and Drug Discovery
Abbreviation	Front. Pharmacol.
ISSN (online)	1663-9812
Scope	Pharmacology (medical) Pharmacology