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

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

Chapman T. Drug discovery: the leading edge. Nature (2004) 430:109–115.

A journal article with 2 authors

Paterson I, Anderson EA. Chemistry. The renaissance of natural products as drug candidates. Science (2005) 310:451–453.

A journal article with 3 authors

Sherwood SC, Lanzante JR, Meyer CL. Radiosonde daytime biases and late-20th century warming. Science (2005) 309:1556–1559.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Chen LX, Jäger WJ, Jennings G, Gosztola DJ, Munkholm A, Hessler JP. Capturing a photoexcited molecular structure through time-domain x-ray absorption fine structure. Science (2001) 292:262–264.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

McAulay AD. Military Laser Technology for Defense. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (2011).

An edited book

Lenard TM, May RJ eds. Net Neutrality or Net Neutering: Should Broadband Internet Services be Regulated. Boston, MA: Springer US (2006). XII, 225 p. 3 illus p.

A chapter in an edited book

Vican D, Alfirević N, Relja R. “Managing the School: Principals as Managers.,” In: Alfirević N, Burušić J, Pavičić J, Relja R, editors. School Effectiveness and Educational Management: Towards a South-Eastern Europe Research and Public Policy Agenda. Cham: Springer International Publishing (2016). p. 67–85

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 Medicine.

Blog post

Taub B. Exercise Gives You More Brain Cells, But Do These Push Old Memories Out Of Your Brain? IFLScience (2016) https://www.iflscience.com/brain/exercise-gives-more-brain-cells-push-old-memories-out-brain/ [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. Information on Materials and Practices for Improving Highway Pavement Performance. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office (2012).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Newfang DA. A Historical Assessment of Asbestos Exposure, Abatement Methods and Containment Efficacy During Asbestos Containing Material Removal Activities at a Large Federal Facility. [Doctoral dissertation]. Tampa, FL: University of South Florida (2017).

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

Schwirtz M, Rashbaum WK. Facing Critics, City Jails Chief Is Set to Resign. New York Times (2017)A1.

In-text citations

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

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 Medicine
Abbreviation	Front. Med. (Lausanne)
ISSN (online)	2296-858X
Scope

Research and Writing Guides