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

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

Ashworth, W. J. (2004). Metrology and the state: science, revenue, and commerce. Science 306, 1314–1317.

A journal article with 2 authors

Weaver, A. J., and Zwiers, F. W. (2000). Uncertainty in climate change. Nature 407, 571–572.

A journal article with 3 authors

Vaupel, J. W., Carey, J. R., and Christensen, K. (2003). Aging. It’s never too late. Science 301, 1679–1681.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Sakaguchi, K., Shimizu, T., Horaguchi, S., Sekine, H., Yamato, M., Umezu, M., et al. (2013). In vitro engineering of vascularized tissue surrogates. Sci. Rep. 3, 1316.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bourlès, H. (2013). Linear Systems. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Wu, P. (2013). Lean and Cleaner Production: Applications in Prefabrication to Reduce Carbon Emissions., ed. S. P. Low. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Le Cadre, H., Bouhtou, M., and Tuffin, B. (2009). “A Pricing Model for a Mobile Network Operator Sharing Limited Resource with a Mobile Virtual Network Operator,” in Network Economics for Next Generation Networks: 6th International Workshop on Internet Charging and Qos Technologies, ICQT 2009, Aachen, Germany, May 11-15, 2009. Proceedings, eds. P. Reichl, B. Stiller, and B. Tuffin (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer), 24–35.

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 Physiology.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2014). Are You Smarter Than A Crow? IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/are-you-smarter-crow/ (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 (2011). Transportation Worker Identification Credential: Mailing Credentials to Applicants’ Residences Would Not Be Consistent with DHS Policy. 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

Van Fossen, L. (2015). The communicative use of iconic face drawings to express emotional and evaluative statements in persons with aphasia. 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

Cowen, T. (2014). Gauging the Gender Gap, Present and Future. New York Times, BU7.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Ashworth, 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Weaver and Zwiers, 2000; Ashworth, 2004).

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

Two authors: (Weaver and Zwiers, 2000)
Three or more authors: (Sakaguchi et al., 2013)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Systems Physiology
Abbreviation	Front. Physiol.
ISSN (online)	1664-042X
Scope	Physiology Physiology (medical)