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

Blaxter M. 2010. Genetics. Revealing the dark matter of the genome. Science. 330(6012):1758–1759.

A journal article with 2 authors

Godula K, Sames D. 2006. C-H bond functionalization in complex organic synthesis. Science. 312(5770):67–72.

A journal article with 3 authors

Winston WM, Molodowitch C, Hunter CP. 2002. Systemic RNAi in C. elegans requires the putative transmembrane protein SID-1. Science. 295(5564):2456–2459.

A journal article with 12 or more authors

Stramma L, Johnson GC, Sprintall J, Mohrholz V. 2008. Expanding oxygen-minimum zones in the tropical oceans. Science. 320(5876):655–658.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Perlmutter DD, Rothstein RL. 2010. The Challenge of Climate Change. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Liu J. 2011. Advanced Sliding Mode Control for Mechanical Systems: Design, Analysis and MATLAB Simulation. Wang X, editor. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Giardina E, Sinibaldi C, Peconi C, Novelli G. 2007. Dermatite atopica: genetica. In: Gelmetti C, editor. La scuola dell’atopia. Milano: Springer; p. 37–47.

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. First Feathers In Amber Matched To A Specific Dinosaur. IFLScience [Internet]. [accessed 2018 Oct 30]. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/first-feathers-in-amber-matched-to-a-specific-dinosaur/

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. 1979. What Assurance Does Office of Education’s Eligibility Process Provide? 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

Park K-S. 2006. Transcriptional Regulation In The Respiratory Epithelium During Development And Repair [Doctoral dissertation]. Cincinnati, OH: University of Cincinnati.

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

Winerip M, Schwirtz M. 2015. A New York Inmate Dies, and No One Is Punished. New York Times.:A1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Blaxter 2010).
This sentence cites two references (Godula and Sames 2006; Blaxter 2010).

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

Two authors: (Godula and Sames 2006)
Three or more authors: (Stramma et al. 2008)

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

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