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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
Crow, J. M. (2012). Obesity: insensitive issue. Nature 486, S12-3.
A journal article with 2 authors
Long, M. A., and Fee, M. S. (2008). Using temperature to analyse temporal dynamics in the songbird motor pathway. Nature 456, 189–194.
A journal article with 3 authors
Drell, S. D., Shultz, G. P., and Andreasen, S. P. (2012). Nuclear safety. A safer nuclear enterprise. Science 336, 1236.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
Ishiba, T., Nagahara, M., Nakagawa, T., Sato, T., Ishikawa, T., Uetake, H., et al. (2014). Periostin suppression induces decorin secretion leading to reduced breast cancer cell motility and invasion. Sci. Rep. 4, 7069.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Quinn, J. F. (2013). Dementia. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
An edited book
Meadows, G. G. ed. (2005). Integration/Interaction of Oncologic Growth. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.
A chapter in an edited book
Agarwal, R. P., Perera, K., and Pinelas, S. (2011). “Complex Functions,” in An Introduction to Complex Analysis, eds. K. Perera and S. Pinelas (Boston, MA: Springer US), 28–36.

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
Taub, B. (2015). Why Are People So Curious? 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 (2004). Aviation Security: Factors Could Limit the Effectiveness of the Transportation Security Administration’s Efforts to Secure Aerial Advertising Operations. 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
Murdock, J. M. (2017). Lethe and the Twin Bodhisattvas of Forgiveness and Forgetfulness.

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
Vecsey, G. (2011). A Cosmic Comeuppance for the Dodgers. New York Times, B13.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Crow, 2012).
This sentence cites two references (Long and Fee, 2008; Crow, 2012).

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

  • Two authors: (Long and Fee, 2008)
  • Three or more authors: (Ishiba et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal titleFrontiers in Plant Genetics and Genomics
AbbreviationFront. Plant Sci.
ISSN (online)1664-462X
ScopePlant Science

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