How to format your references using the Frontiers in Plant Genetics and Genomics citation style

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

Stajic, J. (2013). Quantum information processing. The future of quantum information processing. Introduction. Science 339, 1163.

A journal article with 2 authors

Goring, D. R., and Walker, J. C. (2004). Plant sciences. Self-rejection--a new kinase connection. Science 303, 1474–1475.

A journal article with 3 authors

Boisvert, C. A., Mark-Kurik, E., and Ahlberg, P. E. (2008). The pectoral fin of Panderichthys and the origin of digits. Nature 456, 636–638.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Corder, R., Mullen, W., Khan, N. Q., Marks, S. C., Wood, E. G., Carrier, M. J., et al. (2006). Oenology: red wine procyanidins and vascular health. Nature 444, 566.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Michaud, T. (2017). Innovation, Between Science and Science Fiction. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Brewer, J. W., Glaz, S., Heinzer, W. J., and Olberding, B. M. eds. (2006). Multiplicative Ideal Theory in Commutative Algebra: A Tribute to the Work of Robert Gilmer. Boston, MA: Springer US.

A chapter in an edited book

Sosík, P. (2014). “Active Membranes, Proteins on Membranes, Tissue P Systems: Complexity-Related Issues and Challenges,” in Membrane Computing: 14th International Conference, CMC 2013, Chişinău, Republic of Moldova, August 20-23, 2013, Revised Selected Papers, eds. A. Alhazov, S. Cojocaru, M. Gheorghe, Y. Rogozhin, G. Rozenberg, and A. Salomaa (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer), 40–55.

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 Genetics and Genomics.

Blog post

Hale, T. (2016). The Physics Of Totally And Utterly Destroying The Universe. IFLScience.

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 (2014). Federal Software Licenses: Most Agencies Have Reported Planned Actions to Address Our Prior Recommendations on Software License Management. 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

Savage, F. (2014). Effect of Dry-Wet Cycles on Fracture Propagation in Shale and Gas Production Mechanism. Lafayette, LA: University of Louisiana.

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

(nyt), S. K. (2002). World Briefing | Europe: Belarus: European Official Expelled. New York Times, A9.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Stajic, 2013).
This sentence cites two references (Goring and Walker, 2004; Stajic, 2013).

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

Two authors: (Goring and Walker, 2004)
Three or more authors: (Corder et al., 2006)

About the journal

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