How to format your references using the Frontiers in Systems Biology citation style

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

Chien, K. R. (2000). Genomic circuits and the integrative biology of cardiac diseases. Nature 407, 227–232.

A journal article with 2 authors

Epshtein, V., and Nudler, E. (2003). Cooperation between RNA polymerase molecules in transcription elongation. Science 300, 801–805.

A journal article with 3 authors

Enquist, B. J., Haskell, J. P., and Tiffney, B. H. (2002). General patterns of taxonomic and biomass partitioning in extant and fossil plant communities. Nature 419, 610–613.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Ahlawat, S., Xie, F., Zhu, Y., D’Hondt, R., Ding, X., Zhang, Q.-Y., et al. (2014). Mice deficient in intestinal epithelium cytochrome P450 reductase are prone to acute toxin-induced mucosal damage. Sci. Rep. 4, 5551.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Arden, J. B., and Linford, L. (2008). Brain-Based Therapy with Adults. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Escors, D. (2016). Myeloid-Derived Suppressor Cells and Cancer., 1st ed. 2016, eds. J. E. Talmadge, K. Breckpot, J. A. Van Ginderachter, and G. Kochan. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Huang, S., Wang, S., Li, W., and Wang, Q. (2016). “The Propagation Characteristics of Ultrasonic Guided Waves in Plate and Pipe,” in Electromagnetic Ultrasonic Guided Waves, eds. S. Wang, W. Li, and Q. Wang (Singapore: Springer), 153–181.

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 Systems Biology.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2015). Rare “Sea Serpent” Washes Up Dead On California Beach. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/rare-oarfish-washes-dead-california-beach/ (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 (2003). University Research: Most Federal Agencies Need to Better Protect against Financial Conflicts of Interest. 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

Sutherland, C. E. (2013). Positive deviance during organization change: Researchers’ social construction of expanded university goals. Malibu, CA: Pepperdine 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

Gordon, M. R., and Schmitt, E. (2017). Defying Turkey, U.S. Will Arm Kurds in Syria. 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 (Chien, 2000).
This sentence cites two references (Chien, 2000; Epshtein and Nudler, 2003).

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

Two authors: (Epshtein and Nudler, 2003)
Three or more authors: (Ahlawat et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Systems Biology
Abbreviation	Front. Psychiatry
ISSN (online)	1664-0640
Scope	Psychiatry and Mental health