How to format your references using the Frontiers in Sociology citation style

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

McNab, B. K. (2000). Energy constraints on carnivore diet. Nature 407, 584.

A journal article with 2 authors

Ratcliffe, J. M., and Nydam, M. L. (2008). Multimodal warning signals for a multiple predator world. Nature 455, 96–99.

A journal article with 3 authors

Scaffidi, P., Misteli, T., and Bianchi, M. E. (2002). Release of chromatin protein HMGB1 by necrotic cells triggers inflammation. Nature 418, 191–195.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

El-Halawany, A. M., El Dine, R. S., El Sayed, N. S., and Hattori, M. (2014). Protective effect of Aframomum melegueta phenolics against CCl₄-induced rat hepatocytes damage; role of apoptosis and pro-inflammatory cytokines inhibition. Sci. Rep. 4, 5880.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Lacaze, P. C., and Lacroix, J.-C. (2014). Non-Volatile Memories. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Cepedello Boiso, M., Hedenmalm, H., Kaashoek, M. A., Montes Rodríguez, A., and Treil, S. eds. (2014). Concrete Operators, Spectral Theory, Operators in Harmonic Analysis and Approximation: 22nd International Workshop in Operator Theory and its Applications, Sevilla, July 2011. Basel: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Pollice, S., Morlino, G., Capuano, M., and Scarabino, T. (2012). “Future Developments,” in Imaging Gliomas After Treatment: A Case-based Atlas, ed. T. Scarabino (Milano: Springer), 23–24.

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 Sociology.

Blog post

Carpineti, A. (2016). The Real-Life Planets And Moons That Resemble Worlds In “Star Wars.” IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/space/real-star-wars-planets-according-nasa/ (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 (1990). Observations on Ohio’s Implementation of the Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act of 1986. 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

Hsieh, H.-C. (2010). Self-access center and autonomous learning: EFL college students’ motivations, activities and perceptions of learning effectiveness. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University.

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

Kelly, C. (2008). Cortlandt to Offer Plan To Lower Fuel Oil Costs. New York Times, WE6.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (McNab, 2000).
This sentence cites two references (McNab, 2000; Ratcliffe and Nydam, 2008).

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

Two authors: (Ratcliffe and Nydam, 2008)
Three or more authors: (El-Halawany et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Sociology
Abbreviation	Front. Sociol.
ISSN (online)	2297-7775
Scope