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

Frei H. 2006. Chemistry. Selective hydrocarbon oxidation in zeolites. Science. 313(5785):309–310.

A journal article with 2 authors

Freeman MR, Choi BC. 2001. Advances in magnetic microscopy. Science. 294(5546):1484–1488.

A journal article with 3 authors

Gess RW, Coates MI, Rubidge BS. 2006. A lamprey from the Devonian period of South Africa. Nature. 443(7114):981–984.

A journal article with 12 or more authors

Brill TM, Ryu S, Gaylor R, Jundt J, Griffin DD, Song Y-Q, Sen PN, Hürlimann MD. 2002. Nonresonant multiple spin echoes. Science. 297(5580):369–372.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Woolf V. 2012. The Years. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Černá I, Gyimóthy T, Hromkovič J, Jefferey K, Králović R, Vukolić M, Wolf S, editors. 2011. SOFSEM 2011: Theory and Practice of Computer Science: 37th Conference on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Computer Science, Nový Smokovec, Slovakia, January 22-28, 2011. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Riegler A. 2007. Superstition in the Machine. In: Butz MV, Sigaud O, Pezzulo G, Baldassarre G, editors. Anticipatory Behavior in Adaptive Learning Systems: From Brains to Individual and Social Behavior. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; p. 57–72.

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

Luntz S. 2016. Tall People Are Better Hunters In The Dark. IFLScience [Internet]. [accessed 2018 Oct 30]. https://www.iflscience.com/brain/tall-people-are-better-hunters-in-the-dark/

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. 1988. NATO-Warsaw Pact: Conventional Force Balance--Papers for U.S. and Soviet Perspectives Workshops. 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

Phongprasert AV. 2010. MSW students’ perceived knowledge and perceptions of effectiveness of the child welfare system [Doctoral dissertation]. 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

Bowley G, Ember S. 2015. Cosby Legal and Publicity Teams Opt for Silence After Admission Is Released. 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 (Frei 2006).
This sentence cites two references (Freeman and Choi 2001; Frei 2006).

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

Two authors: (Freeman and Choi 2001)
Three or more authors: (Brill et al. 2002)

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