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

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

Vaux, D. L. (2012). Research methods: Know when your numbers are significant. Nature 492, 180–181.

A journal article with 2 authors

Hollien, J., and Weissman, J. S. (2006). Decay of endoplasmic reticulum-localized mRNAs during the unfolded protein response. Science 313, 104–107.

A journal article with 3 authors

Raymo, M. E., Lisiecki, L. E., and Nisancioglu, K. H. (2006). Plio-Pleistocene ice volume, Antarctic climate, and the global delta18O record. Science 313, 492–495.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Seres, J., Seres, E., Verhoef, A. J., Tempea, G., Streli, C., Wobrauschek, P., et al. (2005). Laser technology: source of coherent kiloelectronvolt X-rays. Nature 433, 596.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Basset, P., Blokhina, E., and Galayko, D. (2016). Electrostatic Kinetic Energy Harvesting. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Murphy, N., Ellis, G. F. R., and O’Connor, T. eds. (2009). Downward Causation and the Neurobiology of Free Will. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Crippin, J. B. (2011). “Explosives and Arson,” in The Forensic Laboratory Handbook Procedures and Practice, eds. A. Mozayani and C. Noziglia (Totowa, NJ: Humana Press), 123–144.

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 Materials.

Blog post

Taub, B. (2016). Scientist Who Throws Cane Toad Sausages Out Of Helicopters Wins Top Award. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/scientist-who-throws-cane-toad-sausages-from-helicopters-wins-top-award/ [Accessed October 30, 2018].

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 (1969). Internal Controls Over the Automatic Data Processing System Used by the Travelers Insurance Company in Making Medicare Payments. 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

Arntson, J. D. (2015). Heidegger and disclosive rhetoric: Two divergent paths in immanence and transcendence.

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

Valerian, S. (2013). For a Brown, the Comeback Trail Leads Home. New York Times, B17.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Vaux, 2012).
This sentence cites two references (Hollien and Weissman, 2006; Vaux, 2012).

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

Two authors: (Hollien and Weissman, 2006)
Three or more authors: (Seres et al., 2005)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Materials
Abbreviation	Front. Mater.
ISSN (online)	2296-8016
Scope