How to format your references using the Frontiers in Laboratory Medicine citation style

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

Service RF. MATERIALS SCIENCE: New Tigers in the Fuel Cell Tank. Science. 2000;288(5473):1955-1957.

A journal article with 2 authors

Turgeon SC, Creaser RA. Cretaceous oceanic anoxic event 2 triggered by a massive magmatic episode. Nature. 2008;454(7202):323-326.

A journal article with 3 authors

Patterson D, Schnell M, Doyle JM. Enantiomer-specific detection of chiral molecules via microwave spectroscopy. Nature. 2013;497(7450):475-477.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

DeLuca TH, Zackrisson O, Nilsson MC, Sellstedt A. Quantifying nitrogen-fixation in feather moss carpets of boreal forests. Nature. 2002;419(6910):917-920.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Keiser G. FTTX Concepts and Applications. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2006.

An edited book

Cámara J, Lemos R de, Ghezzi C, Lopes A, eds. Assurances for Self-Adaptive Systems: Principles, Models, and Techniques. Vol 7740. Springer; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

Pollet BG, Staffell I, Adamson KA. Energy Generation and Usage in South Africa. In: Staffell I, Adamson KA, eds. The Energy Landscape in the Republic of South Africa. SpringerBriefs in Energy. Springer International Publishing; 2016:17-19.

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 Laboratory Medicine.

Blog post

Fang J. Sea anemone genetics are surprisingly plant-like. IFLScience. March 19, 2014. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/sea-anemones-are-half-animal-half-plant/

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. Passenger Rail Security: Enhanced Federal Leadership Needed to Prioritize and Guide Security Efforts. U.S. Government Printing Office; 2005.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Ren H. Modification and Characterization of Ordered Mesoporous Carbons for Resorcinol Removal. Doctoral dissertation. University of Louisiana; 2014.

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

Sisario B. The Chef Providing a Comic Garnish to the Grammys. New York Times. February 7, 2017:C2.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

This sentence cites one reference ¹.
This sentence cites two references ^1,2.
This sentence cites four references ^1–4.

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Laboratory Medicine
ISSN (print)	2542-3649
Scope