How to format your references using the Frontiers in Functional Plant Ecology citation style

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

Kargel, J. S. (2004). Planetary science. Proof for water, hints of life? Science 306, 1689–1691.

A journal article with 2 authors

Rosen, E. D., and Spiegelman, B. M. (2006). Adipocytes as regulators of energy balance and glucose homeostasis. Nature 444, 847–853.

A journal article with 3 authors

Laporte, S. A., Oakley, R. H., and Caron, M. G. (2001). Signal transduction. Bringing channels closer to the action! Science 293, 62–63.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Grassly, N. C., Fraser, C., Wenger, J., Deshpande, J. M., Sutter, R. W., Heymann, D. L., et al. (2006). New strategies for the elimination of polio from India. Science 314, 1150–1153.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Escarpa, A., González, M. C., and López, M. Á. (2015). Agricultural and Food Electroanalysis. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Galavotti, M. C., Dieks, D., Gonzalez, W. J., Hartmann, S., Uebel, T., and Weber, M. eds. (2014). New Directions in the Philosophy of Science. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Sloan, K. (2016). “The Lives of Mrs Delany’s Paper Plants,” in The Material Cultures of Enlightenment Arts and Sciences, eds. A. Craciun and S. Schaffer (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK), 39–41.

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 Functional Plant Ecology.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2015). Mysterious X-Rays Could Mark Enormous Star Graveyard Surrounding Our Galaxy’s Supermassive Black Hole. 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 (2006). Congressional Oversight: FAA Case Study Shows How Agency Performance, Budgeting, and Financial Information Could Enhance Oversight. 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

Morgan, T. M. (2017). Do You See What I See? How Symbol Integration Facilitates Responsibility to Self and Culture. Carpinteria, CA: Pacifica Graduate Institute.

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

Woolfe, Z. (2017). Once Rebels, Now Institutions. New York Times, C5.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Kargel, 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Kargel, 2004; Rosen and Spiegelman, 2006).

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

Two authors: (Rosen and Spiegelman, 2006)
Three or more authors: (Grassly et al., 2006)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Functional Plant Ecology
Abbreviation	Front. Plant Sci.
ISSN (online)	1664-462X
Scope	Plant Science