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

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

Hambäck, P. A. (2010). Ecology. A green or a prickly world? Science 327, 1583–1584.

A journal article with 2 authors

Lowell, B. B., and Spiegelman, B. M. (2000). Towards a molecular understanding of adaptive thermogenesis. Nature 404, 652–660.

A journal article with 3 authors

Jakobsen, L., Ratcliffe, J. M., and Surlykke, A. (2013). Convergent acoustic field of view in echolocating bats. Nature 493, 93–96.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Kirkland, J. I., Zanno, L. E., Sampson, S. D., Clark, J. M., and DeBlieux, D. D. (2005). A primitive therizinosauroid dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Utah. Nature 435, 84–87.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Das, S. K. (2010). Mobile Handset Design. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Hersh, M. ed. (2015). Ethical Engineering for International Development and Environmental Sustainability. London: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Gjedrem, T., and Baranski, M. (2009). “Initiating Breeding Programs,” in Selective Breeding in Aquaculture: An Introduction, ed. M. Baranski (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands), 63–85.

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 Physiology.

Blog post

Fang, J. (2014). Bird Feathers Appear Red or Blue in Completely Different Ways. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/bird-feathers-appear-red-or-blue-completely-different-ways/ (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 (1996). Highway Trust Fund: Financial Status and Outlook. 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

De La Cruz, E. (2014). School social work programing for an elementary school: A grant writing project. 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

Sang-Hun, C. (2017). Accused of ‘Hostile Acts,’ a 4th American Citizen Is Detained by North Korea. New York Times, A4.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Hambäck, 2010).
This sentence cites two references (Lowell and Spiegelman, 2000; Hambäck, 2010).

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

Two authors: (Lowell and Spiegelman, 2000)
Three or more authors: (Kirkland et al., 2005)

About the journal

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