How to format your references using the Frontiers in Terrestrial Microbiology citation style

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

Huron, D. (2008). Science & music: lost in music. Nature 453, 456–457.

A journal article with 2 authors

Godley, L. A., and Mondragón, A. (2011). Molecular biology. Preference by exclusion. Science 331, 1017–1018.

A journal article with 3 authors

Gächter, S., Renner, E., and Sefton, M. (2008). The long-run benefits of punishment. Science 322, 1510.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Kocot, K. M., Cannon, J. T., Todt, C., Citarella, M. R., Kohn, A. B., Meyer, A., et al. (2011). Phylogenomics reveals deep molluscan relationships. Nature 477, 452–456.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Dowd, K. (2005). Measuring Market Risk. Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

An edited book

Eckold, G., Schober, H., and Nagler, S. E. eds. (2010). Studying Kinetics with Neutrons: Prospects for Time-Resolved Neutron Scattering. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Tamburrini, O., and Dalla Palma, F. (2010). “Atto medico radiologico,” in Management in radiologia, eds. L. Bonomo, A. Carriero, M. Centonze, and T. Scarabino (Milano: Springer), 49–66.

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 Terrestrial Microbiology.

Blog post

Luntz, S. (2014). New Study Suggests The World Is On The Brink Of The Next Great Extinction. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/new-study-suggests-world-brink-next-great-extinction/ (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 (1998). Air Traffic Control: Information Concerning Equipment Outages at Two Kansas City Area Facilities. 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

McElhoes, J. L. (2017). Spatial, Technological, and Functional Variability Among the Prehistoric Ceramics of the Southern California Coast. 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

Greenhouse, L. (2005). Two Convicts From Abroad Win Hearing By Justices. New York Times, A23.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Huron, 2008).
This sentence cites two references (Huron, 2008; Godley and Mondragón, 2011).

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

Two authors: (Godley and Mondragón, 2011)
Three or more authors: (Kocot et al., 2011)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Terrestrial Microbiology
Abbreviation	Front. Microbiol.
ISSN (online)	1664-302X
Scope	Microbiology Microbiology (medical)