How to format your references using the Frontiers in Molecular and Structural Endocrinology citation style

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

Dixon, K. W. (2009). Pollination and restoration. Science 325, 571–573.

A journal article with 2 authors

Johnson, D. L., and Johnson, S. A. S. (2008). Cell biology. RNA metabolism and oncogenesis. Science 320, 461–462.

A journal article with 3 authors

Ye, F., Burns, M. J., and Naughton, M. J. (2014). Structured metal thin film as an asymmetric color filter: the forward and reverse plasmonic halos. Sci. Rep. 4, 7267.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Todd, J. D., Rogers, R., Li, Y. G., Wexler, M., Bond, P. L., Sun, L., et al. (2007). Structural and regulatory genes required to make the gas dimethyl sulfide in bacteria. Science 315, 666–669.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Pardoux, É. (2008). Markov Processes and Applications: Algorithms, Networks, Genome and Finance. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Morava, E., Baumgartner, M., Patterson, M., Rahman, S., Zschocke, J., and Peters, V. eds. (2016). JIMD Reports, Volume 26., 1st ed. 2016. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Güner-Özbek, M. D. (2011). “Extended Scope of the Rotterdam Rules: Maritime Plus and Conflict of the Extension with the Extensions of Other Transport Law Conventions,” in The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea: An Appraisal of the “Rotterdam Rules,” ed. M. D. Güner-Özbek (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer), 107–138.

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 Molecular and Structural Endocrinology.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2014). Scientists Develop Environmentally Friendly Diapers Made From Jellyfish. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/scientists-develop-environmentally-friendly-diapers-made-jellyfish/ (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 (1983). Implications of Joint NASA/DOD Participation in Space Shuttle Operations. 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

Mc Adams, A. N. (2012). School psychologists’ perceptions of procedural fidelity in special education. 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

Sisario, B. (2017). Shania Twain Returns To Top of Album Chart. New York Times, C3.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Dixon, 2009).
This sentence cites two references (Johnson and Johnson, 2008; Dixon, 2009).

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

Two authors: (Johnson and Johnson, 2008)
Three or more authors: (Todd et al., 2007)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Molecular and Structural Endocrinology
Abbreviation	Front. Endocrinol. (Lausanne)
ISSN (online)	1664-2392
Scope