How to format your references using the Frontiers in Forensic Psychiatry citation style

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

McDermott, J. (2008). The evolution of music. Nature 453, 287–288.

A journal article with 2 authors

Sun, F., and He, S. (2014). Transformation magneto-statics and illusions for magnets. Sci. Rep. 4, 6593.

A journal article with 3 authors

Bouvier, F., Dogbo, O., and Camara, B. (2003). Biosynthesis of the food and cosmetic plant pigment bixin (annatto). Science 300, 2089–2091.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Rome, L. C., Flynn, L., Goldman, E. M., and Yoo, T. D. (2005). Generating electricity while walking with loads. Science 309, 1725–1728.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Saleh, J. H., and Castet, J.-F. (2011). Spacecraft Reliability and Multi-State Failures. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

AbuZeina, D. (2012). Cross-Word Modeling for Arabic Speech Recognition., ed. M. Elshafei. Boston, MA: Springer US.

A chapter in an edited book

Suh, H.-S., Brosnan, C. F., and Lee, S. C. (2009). “Toll-Like Receptors in CNS Viral Infections,” in Toll-like Receptors: Roles in Infection and Neuropathology, ed. T. Kielian (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer), 63–81.

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 Forensic Psychiatry.

Blog post

Carpineti, A. (2016). Play This Game Today To Help Test The Laws Of Quantum Mechanics. IFLScience.

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 (1994). Electronic Surveillance. 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

Mann, K. M. (2012). Evaluation of Transfer Technologies to Preserve Shoulder Function in SCI. Tampa, FL: University of South Florida.

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

Billard, M. (2011). Sky’s the Limit: Yogis Head Outdoors. New York Times, MB1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (McDermott, 2008).
This sentence cites two references (McDermott, 2008; Sun and He, 2014).

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

Two authors: (Sun and He, 2014)
Three or more authors: (Rome et al., 2005)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Forensic Psychiatry
Abbreviation	Front. Psychiatry
ISSN (online)	1664-0640
Scope	Psychiatry and Mental health