How to format your references using the Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics. 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

Boyle E. Oceanography. Oceanic salt switch. Science (2002) 298:1724–1725.

A journal article with 2 authors

Wang K, Mittleman DM. Metal wires for terahertz wave guiding. Nature (2004) 432:376–379.

A journal article with 3 authors

Hauser MD, Chomsky N, Fitch WT. The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science (2002) 298:1569–1579.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Tegze M, Faigel G, Marchesini S, Belakhovsky M, Ulrich O. Imaging light atoms by X-ray holography. Nature (2000) 407:38.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Provost JJ, Colabroy KL, Kelly BS, Wallert MA. The Science of Cooking. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (2016).

An edited book

Gal O, Chen-Morris R eds. Science in the Age of Baroque. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. (2013). VI, 314 p p.

A chapter in an edited book

Massone C, Nunzi E. “Pathogenesis.,” In: Nunzi E, Massone C, editors. Leprosy: A Practical Guide. Milano: Springer (2012). p. 39–42

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 Research Metrics and Analytics.

Blog post

Fang J. Nine Dwarf Galaxies Discovered Orbiting Around the Milky Way. IFLScience (2015)

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. Railroad Safety: Engineer Work Shift Length and Schedule Variability. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. (1992).

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Alnuaimi AN. The Outside-In Method for Sustainable Design Within the Built Environment Spatial Layers. [Doctoral dissertation]. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona. (2017).

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

Hollander S. Home Woes Continue. New York Times (1999)810.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (1).
This sentence cites two references (1,2).
This sentence cites four references (1–4).

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics
Abbreviation	Front. Res. Metr. Anal.
ISSN (online)	2504-0537
Scope