How to format your references using the Frontiers in Thoracic Oncology citation style

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

Schnitzer, M. J. (2010). Journal club. A neuroscientist learns about algorithms for motor learning. Nature 463, 273.

A journal article with 2 authors

Weber, T., and Deutsch, C. (2012). Oceanic nitrogen reservoir regulated by plankton diversity and ocean circulation. Nature 489, 419–422.

A journal article with 3 authors

Piras, V., Tomita, M., and Selvarajoo, K. (2014). Transcriptome-wide variability in single embryonic development cells. Sci. Rep. 4, 7137.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Zuber, J., Shi, J., Wang, E., Rappaport, A. R., Herrmann, H., Sison, E. A., et al. (2011). RNAi screen identifies Brd4 as a therapeutic target in acute myeloid leukaemia. Nature 478, 524–528.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Perlmutter, D. D., and Rothstein, R. L. (2010). The Challenge of Climate Change. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Nguyen, N. T., Blackstone, R. P., Morton, J. M., Ponce, J., and Rosenthal, R. J. eds. (2015). The ASMBS Textbook of Bariatric Surgery: Volume 1: Bariatric Surgery. New York, NY: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Piña, B., Boronat, S., Casado, M., and Olivares, A. (2009). “Recombinant Yeast Assays and Gene Expression Assays for the Analysis of Endocrine Disruption,” in Biosensors for Environmental Monitoring of Aquatic Systems: Bioanalytical and Chemical Methods for Endocrine Disruptors, eds. D. Barceló and P.-D. Hansen (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer), 69–113.

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 Thoracic Oncology.

Blog post

Fang, J. (2015). Polar Bears Are Eating Dolphins And Freezing The Leftovers. IFLScience.

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). Serious Shortcomings in FAA’s Training Program Must Be Remedied. 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

France, K. A. (2015). Triadic Supervision: An Exploration of Supervisors’ Perceptions, Experiences and Practices. Washington, DC: George Washington 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

Dwyer, K. P. (2005). Still Searching for Equilibrium In the Work-Life Balancing Act. New York Times, 101.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Schnitzer, 2010).
This sentence cites two references (Schnitzer, 2010; Weber and Deutsch, 2012).

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

Two authors: (Weber and Deutsch, 2012)
Three or more authors: (Zuber et al., 2011)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Thoracic Oncology
Abbreviation	Front. Oncol.
ISSN (online)	2234-943X
Scope	Cancer Research Oncology