How to format your references using the Frontiers in Plant Biophysics and Modeling citation style

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

Levi, M. A. (2004). Dreaming of clean nukes. Nature 428, 892.

A journal article with 2 authors

Jones, W., and Klin, A. (2013). Attention to eyes is present but in decline in 2-6-month-old infants later diagnosed with autism. Nature 504, 427–431.

A journal article with 3 authors

Alexander, J. M., Diez, J. M., and Levine, J. M. (2015). Novel competitors shape species’ responses to climate change. Nature 525, 515–518.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Carlsson, F., Stålhammar-Carlemalm, M., Flärdh, K., Sandin, C., Carlemalm, E., and Lindahl, G. (2006). Signal sequence directs localized secretion of bacterial surface proteins. Nature 442, 943–946.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Grimes, R. A. (2017). Hacking the Hacker. Indianapolis, Indiana: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Goertzel, B., Orseau, L., and Snaider, J. eds. (2014). Artificial General Intelligence: 7th International Conference, AGI 2014, Quebec City, QC, Canada, August 1-4, 2014. Proceedings. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Alperson-Afil, N., and Goren-Inbar, N. (2016). “Scarce but Significant: The Limestone Component of the Acheulean Site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel,” in The Nature of Culture: Based on an Interdisciplinary Symposium ‘The Nature of Culture’, Tübingen, Germany Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology., eds. M. N. Haidle, N. J. Conard, and M. Bolus (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands), 41–56.

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 Plant Biophysics and Modeling.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2014). Ectopic Fetus Removed From Woman After 36 Years. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/ectopic-fetus-removed-woman-after-36-years/ [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). Telecommunications: Initiatives Taken by Three States to Promote Increased Access and Investment. 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

So, R. J. (2010). Coolie democracy: U.S.-China political and literary exchange, 1925-1955.

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

Brantley, B. (2017). The Irresistible Attraction of an Assault Rifle. New York Times, C5.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Levi, 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Levi, 2004; Jones and Klin, 2013).

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

Two authors: (Jones and Klin, 2013)
Three or more authors: (Carlsson et al., 2006)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Plant Biophysics and Modeling
Abbreviation	Front. Plant Sci.
ISSN (online)	1664-462X
Scope	Plant Science