How to format your references using the Frontiers in Virology citation style

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

Egger, J. (2014). Refinement-cut: user-guided segmentation algorithm for translational science. Sci. Rep. 4, 5164.

A journal article with 2 authors

de Visser, J. A. G. M., and Rozen, D. E. (2004). Comment on “High deleterious genomic mutation rate in stationary phase of Escherichia coli.” Science 304, 518; author reply 518.

A journal article with 3 authors

Hastings, M. G., Jarvis, J. C., and Steig, E. J. (2009). Anthropogenic impacts on nitrogen isotopes of ice-core nitrate. Science 324, 1288.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Thon, M., Hosoi, T., Yoshii, M., and Ozawa, K. (2014). Leptin induced GRP78 expression through the PI3K-mTOR pathway in neuronal cells. Sci. Rep. 4, 7096.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bauldry, W. C. (2009). Introduction to Real Analysis. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Niaz, M. (2011). Nature of Science in General Chemistry Textbooks., ed. A. Maza. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

A chapter in an edited book

Thomas, A., and Kopczak, L. R. (2007). “Life-Saving Supply Chains,” in Building Supply Chain Excellence in Emerging Economies, eds. H. L. Lee and C.-Y. Lee (Boston, MA: Springer US), 93–111.

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 Virology.

Blog post

Davis, J. (2016). Legal Hunting Of Wolves May Actually Increase Poaching. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/legal-culling-wolves-conservation-may-be-fueling-poaching-instead/ (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 (2008). Applying Agreed-Upon Procedures: Fiscal Year 2008 Highway Trust Fund Excise Taxes. 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

McGowan, H. C. (2008). The military experience: Perceptions from senior military officers’ wives. Minneapolis, MN: Capella 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

Kelly, M. (1992). THE TRANSITION: The New Team; Clinton Forming Tight Ethics Guides for Transition and Staff Aides. New York Times, A22.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Egger, 2014).
This sentence cites two references (de Visser and Rozen, 2004; Egger, 2014).

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

Two authors: (de Visser and Rozen, 2004)
Three or more authors: (Thon et al., 2014)

About the journal

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