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

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

Powell, K. (2003). The data busters. Nature 421, 970–973.

A journal article with 2 authors

Mani, R. G., and Kriisa, A. (2013). Magneto-transport characteristics of a 2D electron system driven to negative magneto-conductivity by microwave photoexcitation. Sci. Rep. 3, 3478.

A journal article with 3 authors

Huntington, J. A., Read, R. J., and Carrell, R. W. (2000). Structure of a serpin-protease complex shows inhibition by deformation. Nature 407, 923–926.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Chen, J., de Felipe, K. S., Clarke, M., Lu, H., Anderson, O. R., Segal, G., et al. (2004). Legionella effectors that promote nonlytic release from protozoa. Science 303, 1358–1361.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kricheldorf, H. R. (2012). Menschen und ihre Materialien. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

An edited book

Hughes, G. R. V. ed. (2009). Understanding Hughes Syndrome: Case Studies for Patients. London: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Barron, R. F. (2007). “Advances in Cryogenic Principles,” in Cryogenic Engineering, eds. K. D. Timmerhaus and R. P. Reed (New York, NY: Springer), 105–119.

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 Genetics.

Blog post

Fang, J. (2014). Existence of Exotic Hadron Confirmed. 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 (2004). Pipeline Safety: Preliminary Information on the Office of Pipeline Safety’s Enforcement 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

Hernandez, K. (2015). Life skills education for at-risk youth at Soledad Enrichment Action Charter High School: A grant proposal. Long Beach, CA: California State University, Long Beach.

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

Koblin, J. (2016). Williams Expected to Get His Own Show on MSNBC. New York Times, B2.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Powell, 2003).
This sentence cites two references (Powell, 2003; Mani and Kriisa, 2013).

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

Two authors: (Mani and Kriisa, 2013)
Three or more authors: (Chen et al., 2004)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Genetics
Abbreviation	Front. Genet.
ISSN (online)	1664-8021
Scope	Genetics Molecular Medicine Genetics(clinical)