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:

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
Davies, J. A. (2015). Biological techniques: Kidney tissue grown from induced stem cells. Nature 526, 512–513.
A journal article with 2 authors
Scanlon, J. D., and Lee, M. S. (2000). The Pleistocene serpent Wonambi and the early evolution of snakes. Nature 403, 416–420.
A journal article with 3 authors
Knudson, M. D., Desjarlais, M. P., and Dolan, D. H. (2008). Shock-wave exploration of the high-pressure phases of carbon. Science 322, 1822–1825.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
Sanfey, A. G., Rilling, J. K., Aronson, J. A., Nystrom, L. E., and Cohen, J. D. (2003). The neural basis of economic decision-making in the Ultimatum Game. Science 300, 1755–1758.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Lafontaine, E., and Comet, M. (2016). Nanothermites. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
Gabryś-Barker, D., and Gałajda, D. eds. (2016). Positive Psychology Perspectives on Foreign Language Learning and Teaching. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
A chapter in an edited book
Golob, A. L., and Lee, T. (2015). “Perioperative Medication Management,” in The Perioperative Medicine Consult Handbook, eds. M. B. Jackson, S. Mookherjee, and N. P. Hamlin (Cham: Springer International Publishing), 17–25.

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). Spherical Reactor Could Be The Right Approach To Make Fusion Viable. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/technology/spherical-reactor-could-be-the-right-approach-to-make-fusion-viable/ (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 (1983). Transfer of Government-Owned Weather Satellites to Private Sector. 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
Dillard, C. (2017). Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) and Implementation Science. Long Beach, CA: California State University, Long Beach.

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
Nagourney, A., Lovett, I., and Rojas, R. (2015). Community Struck by Massacre Seemed on Verge of Turnaround. New York Times, A1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Davies, 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Scanlon and Lee, 2000; Davies, 2015).

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

  • Two authors: (Scanlon and Lee, 2000)
  • Three or more authors: (Sanfey et al., 2003)

About the journal

Full journal titleFrontiers in Sociology
AbbreviationFront. Sociol.
ISSN (online)2297-7775
Scope

Other styles