How to format your references using the Frontiers in Membrane Physiology and Biophysics citation style

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

McBain, C. J. (2012). Neuroscience. Decoding the neuronal Tower of Babel. Science 338, 482–483.

A journal article with 2 authors

Strausberg, R. L., and Schreiber, S. L. (2003). From knowing to controlling: a path from genomics to drugs using small molecule probes. Science 300, 294–295.

A journal article with 3 authors

Montoya, J. M., Pimm, S. L., and Solé, R. V. (2006). Ecological networks and their fragility. Nature 442, 259–264.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Dai, S., Friemann, R., Glauser, D. A., Bourquin, F., Manieri, W., Schürmann, P., et al. (2007). Structural snapshots along the reaction pathway of ferredoxin-thioredoxin reductase. Nature 448, 92–96.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Dant, S. (2016). Losing Eden. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Scher, C. S. ed. (2014). Anesthesia for Trauma: New Evidence and New Challenges. New York, NY: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Sugimura, H., Yamada, H., Kageyama, S., Yamamura, Y., Yokota, N., Mori, H., et al. (2011). “Glioblastoma: Germline Mutation of TP53,” in Tumors of the Central Nervous System, Volume 2: Gliomas: Glioblastoma (Part 2), ed. M. A. Hayat (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands), 31–38.

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 Membrane Physiology and Biophysics.

Blog post

Carpineti, A. (2016). Astronomers Just Observed “Rain” Falling On A Supermassive Black Hole. 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 (1984). First-Year Implementation of the Federal Managers’ Financial Integrity Act in the Department of Education. 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

Harris, R. H. (2017). Comparing the Effects of Traditional Face-to-face, Technology-Based, and Blended Instructional Strategies in a Post-Secondary Spanish Language Learning Environment.

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

Hartocollis, A. (2014). Doctor Who Worked on Rivers Steps Down From Post at Medical Clinic. New York Times, A15.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (McBain, 2012).
This sentence cites two references (Strausberg and Schreiber, 2003; McBain, 2012).

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

Two authors: (Strausberg and Schreiber, 2003)
Three or more authors: (Dai et al., 2007)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Membrane Physiology and Biophysics
Abbreviation	Front. Physiol.
ISSN (online)	1664-042X
Scope	Physiology Physiology (medical)

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