How to format your references using the Frontiers in Life Science citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Frontiers in Life Science. 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	Download the output style file
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

Gravitz L. 2014. Therapy: This time it’s personal. Nature. 509(7502):S52-4.

A journal article with 2 authors

Brüning O, Collier P. 2007. Building a behemoth. Nature. 448(7151):285–289.

A journal article with 3 authors

Joo W, Hippenmeyer S, Luo L. 2014. Neurodevelopment. Dendrite morphogenesis depends on relative levels of NT-3/TrkC signaling. Science. 346(6209):626–629.

A journal article with 12 or more authors

Bartke A, Wright JC, Mattison JA, Ingram DK, Miller RA, Roth GS. 2001. Extending the lifespan of long-lived mice. Nature. 414(6862):412.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Edwards J. 2004. Telecosmos. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Aebi M, Gunzburg R, Szpalski M, editors. 2005. The Aging Spine. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Cho YJ, Park C, Rassias TM, Saadati R. 2015. Stability of Functional Inequalities in Banach Algebras. In: Park C, Rassias TM, Saadati R, editors. Stability of Functional Equations in Banach Algebras. Cham: Springer International Publishing; p. 165–199.

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 Life Science.

Blog post

Davis J. 2016. The UK Government Just Got Rid Of Its Climate Department. 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. Information Technology: Training Can Be Enhanced by Greater Use of Leading Practices. 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

Crane CC. 2017. A Qualitative Study on the Preferred Working Environment of Southern California Secondary Teachers with Experience in Both a District Traditional School and a District Charter School [Doctoral dissertation]. Malibu, CA: Pepperdine 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

Kitsantonis N. 2017. Debt Relief, With Pain, Is on the Way For Greece. New York Times.:B3.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Gravitz 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Brüning and Collier 2007; Gravitz 2014).

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

Two authors: (Brüning and Collier 2007)
Three or more authors: (Bartke et al. 2001)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Life Science
Abbreviation	Front. Life Sci.
ISSN (print)	2155-3769
ISSN (online)	2155-3777
Scope	General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology General Neuroscience