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

Robock, A. (2002). Pinatubo eruption. The climatic aftermath. Science 295, 1242–1244.

A journal article with 2 authors

Bolhuis, J. J., and Wynne, C. D. L. (2009). Can evolution explain how minds work? Nature 458, 832–833.

A journal article with 3 authors

Katsanis, S. H., Javitt, G., and Hudson, K. (2008). Public health. A case study of personalized medicine. Science 320, 53–54.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Solan, M., Cardinale, B. J., Downing, A. L., Engelhardt, K. A. M., Ruesink, J. L., and Srivastava, D. S. (2004). Extinction and ecosystem function in the marine benthos. Science 306, 1177–1180.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Meyer, V. R. (2013). Pitfalls and Errors of HPLC in Pictures. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

An edited book

D’Alessio, S. ed. (2011). Inclusive Education in Italy: A Critical Analysis of the Policy of Integrazione Scolastica. Rotterdam: SensePublishers.

A chapter in an edited book

Compton, V., and France, B. (2012). “Working With Technologists on Technology Curriculum Development and Implementation,” in Bringing Communities Together: Connecting Learners with Scientists or Technologists, eds. B. France and V. Compton (Rotterdam: SensePublishers), 73–88.

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. (2015). These Cute Sea Slugs Are The Sheep Of The Sea. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/these-cute-sea-slugs-are-sheep-sea/ (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 (2002). NASA Management Challenges: Human Capital and Other Critical Areas Need to be Addressed. 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

Monk, K. J. (2014). Effects of distractors and force feedback on an aimed movement task in a CDTI environment. 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

Kercher, S. (2017). Mothers Becoming Fast Friends, With a Swipe. New York Times, D10.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Robock, 2002).
This sentence cites two references (Robock, 2002; Bolhuis and Wynne, 2009).

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

Two authors: (Bolhuis and Wynne, 2009)
Three or more authors: (Solan et al., 2004)

About the journal

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