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

Dalton, R. (2001). Swift move to collect fallout data. Nature 413, 335.

A journal article with 2 authors

Johnson, K. A., and Ashcroft, N. W. (2000). Structure and bandgap closure in dense hydrogen. Nature 403, 632–635.

A journal article with 3 authors

Sun, X.-Q., Shen, H.-W., and Cheng, X.-Q. (2014). Trading network predicts stock price. Sci. Rep. 4, 3711.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Egger, J., Kapur, T., Fedorov, A., Pieper, S., Miller, J. V., Veeraraghavan, H., et al. (2013). GBM volumetry using the 3D Slicer medical image computing platform. Sci. Rep. 3, 1364.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hendrick, J. (2010). Law and Ethics in Children’s Nursing. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

An edited book

Imai, R., Yoshida, M., and Matsumoto, N. eds. (2013). Plant and Microbe Adaptations to Cold in a Changing World: Proceedings from Plant and Microbe Adaptations to Cold 2012. New York, NY: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Sun, X., Liu, S., Bao, J., and Kang, K. (2016). “Selective Laser Melting: Characteristics of IN718 Powder and Microstructures of Fabricated IN718 Sample,” in Characterization of Minerals, Metals, and Materials 2015, eds. J. S. Carpenter, C. Bai, J. P. Escobedo, J.-Y. Hwang, S. Ikhmayies, B. Li, et al. (Cham: Springer International Publishing), 29–37.

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

Andrew, E. (2015). Star Trek Actress Nichelle Nichols Confirms She Will Fly In A NASA Mission Later This Year. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/space/star-trek-actress-nichelle-nichols-confirms-she-will-fly-nasa-mission-later-year/ [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 (1977). The Impact Aid Program. 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

Galan, M. (2012). Educational practices to support homeless students.

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

Hodgman, J. (2017). Bonus Advice From Judge John Hodgman. New York Times, MM20.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Dalton, 2001).
This sentence cites two references (Johnson and Ashcroft, 2000; Dalton, 2001).

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

Two authors: (Johnson and Ashcroft, 2000)
Three or more authors: (Egger et al., 2013)

About the journal

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

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