How to format your references using the Frontiers in Non-Coding RNA citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Frontiers in Non-Coding RNA. 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

Brumfiel, G. (2007). Powerful incentives. Nature 448, 741.

A journal article with 2 authors

Ji, H., and Zweibel, E. (2015). Plasma physics. Understanding particle acceleration in astrophysical plasmas. Science 347, 944–945.

A journal article with 3 authors

Innes, C., Anand, M., and Bauch, C. T. (2013). The impact of human-environment interactions on the stability of forest-grassland mosaic ecosystems. Sci. Rep. 3, 2689.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Soldatov, A. V., Roth, G., Dzyabchenko, A., Johnels, D., Lebedkin, S., Meingast, C., et al. (2001). Topochemical polymerization of C70 controlled by monomer crystal packing. Science 293, 680–683.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Tue, N. V., Reichel, M., and Fischer, M. (2016). Berechnung und Bemessung von Betonbrücken. Berlin, Germany: Wilhelm Ernst & Sohn, Verlag für Architektur und technische Wissenschaften GmbH & Co. KG.

An edited book

Beck, D. E., Wexner, S. D., Hull, T. L., Roberts, P. L., Saclarides, T. J., Senagore, A. J., et al. eds. (2014). The ASCRS Manual of Colon and Rectal Surgery., 2nd ed. 2014. New York, NY: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Silverstein, M., and Abramson, A. (2008). “How Baby-Boomers in the United States Anticipate Their Aging Future: Implications for the Silver Market,” in The Silver Market Phenomenon: Business Opportunities in an Era of Demographic Change, eds. F. Kohlbacher and C. Herstatt (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer), 55–69.

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 Non-Coding RNA.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2014). Why haven’t we encountered aliens yet? The answer could be climate change. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/why-haven’t-we-encountered-aliens-yet-answer-could-be-climate-change/ (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 (1972). Fundamental Changes Needed To Achieve Effective Enforcement of Radio Communication Regulations. 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

Coles, J. (2017). The Balancing of Parental Support and Pressure in Fostering Collegiate Athletes. Scottsdale, AZ: Northcentral University.

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

Kanter, J. (2017). Under Trump, U.S. Is Now a Threat to Europe’s Stability, Leader Warns. New York Times, A13.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Brumfiel, 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Brumfiel, 2007; Ji and Zweibel, 2015).

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

Two authors: (Ji and Zweibel, 2015)
Three or more authors: (Soldatov et al., 2001)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Non-Coding RNA
Abbreviation	Front. Genet.
ISSN (online)	1664-8021
Scope	Genetics Molecular Medicine Genetics(clinical)