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

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

Hendler, J. (2003). Communication. Science and the semantic web. Science 299, 520–521.

A journal article with 2 authors

Srygley, R. B., and Thomas, A. L. R. (2002). Unconventional lift-generating mechanisms in free-flying butterflies. Nature 420, 660–664.

A journal article with 3 authors

Nagashima, K., Krot, A. N., and Yurimoto, H. (2004). Stardust silicates from primitive meteorites. Nature 428, 921–924.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Cifuentes, D., Xue, H., Taylor, D. W., Patnode, H., Mishima, Y., Cheloufi, S., et al. (2010). A novel miRNA processing pathway independent of Dicer requires Argonaute2 catalytic activity. Science 328, 1694–1698.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Raeburn, D. (2016). Greek Tragedies as Plays for Performance. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Ulli-Beer, S. ed. (2013). Dynamic Governance of Energy Technology Change: Socio-technical transitions towards sustainability. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Reiter, H., and Steiner, C. (2016). “Fast Forward to Capitalism? Accelerated Youth in Post-Socialism,” in Eastern European Youth Cultures in a Global Context, eds. M. Schwartz and H. Winkel (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK), 64–80.

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 Neuroscience.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2015). Watch a Starfish Force a Microchip out of Its Body. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/watch-starfish-force-microchip-out-its-body/ [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 (2011). Department of Energy: Advanced Technology Vehicle Loan Program Implementation Is Under Way, but Enhanced Technical Oversight and Performance Measures Are Needed. 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

Campos-Doerfler, L. (2017). The Role of Sgs1 and Exo1 in the Maintenance of Genome Stability.

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

Hollander, S. (2000). Johns Hopkins Goalie Sticks to Daring Style. New York Times, D8.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Hendler, 2003).
This sentence cites two references (Srygley and Thomas, 2002; Hendler, 2003).

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

Two authors: (Srygley and Thomas, 2002)
Three or more authors: (Cifuentes et al., 2010)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Neuroscience
Abbreviation	Front. Neurosci.
ISSN (online)	1662-453X
Scope	General Neuroscience