How to format your references using the Frontiers in Plant Traffic and Transport citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Frontiers in Plant Traffic and Transport. 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
Balibar, S. (2010). The enigma of supersolidity. Nature 464, 176–182.
A journal article with 2 authors
Bianco, P., and Robey, P. G. (2001). Stem cells in tissue engineering. Nature 414, 118–121.
A journal article with 3 authors
Chalancon, G., Kruse, K., and Babu, M. M. (2012). Cell biology. Reconfiguring regulation. Science 335, 1050–1051.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
Xie, S., Shan, X.-F., Shang, K., Xu, H., He, J., and Cai, Z.-G. (2014). Relevance of LIG4 gene polymorphisms with cancer susceptibility: evidence from a meta-analysis. Sci. Rep. 4, 6630.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Bonneau, D., Fatu, A., and Souchet, D. (2014). Thermo-Hydrodynamic Lubrication in Hydrodynamic Bearings. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
Simms, C. (2009). Pedestrian and Cyclist Impact: A Biomechanical Perspective., ed. D. Wood. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.
A chapter in an edited book
Chen, J. L., and Chen, A. (2016). “Basic Operation of the Star Book TEN,” in The Vixen Star Book User Guide: How to Use the Star Book TEN and the Original Star Book, ed. A. Chen (Cham: Springer International Publishing), 21–52.

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 Traffic and Transport.

Blog post
Andrews, R. (2016). The First Death Involving A Self-Driving Car Has Just Been Reported. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/technology/the-first-death-involving-a-selfdriving-car-has-just-been-reported/ (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 (1992). NASA Space Suits. 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
Estrin, J. L. (2014). Sitting in the Fire: An Exploration of Soul-Making in Prison. Carpinteria, CA: Pacifica Graduate Institute.

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
Grynbaum, M. M. (2017). Fox News May Add Ingraham and Move Up Hannity. New York Times, B4.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Balibar, 2010).
This sentence cites two references (Bianco and Robey, 2001; Balibar, 2010).

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

  • Two authors: (Bianco and Robey, 2001)
  • Three or more authors: (Xie et al., 2014)

About the journal

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

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