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

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

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
1. Rochelle GT. Amine scrubbing for CO2 capture. Science. 2009;325:1652–4.
A journal article with 2 authors
1. Minamino T, Namba K. Distinct roles of the FliI ATPase and proton motive force in bacterial flagellar protein export. Nature. 2008;451:485–8.
A journal article with 3 authors
1. Yoshida S, Sukeno M, Nabeshima Y-I. A vasculature-associated niche for undifferentiated spermatogonia in the mouse testis. Science. 2007;317:1722–6.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
1. Kawamoto A, Morimoto YV, Miyata T, Minamino T, Hughes KT, Kato T, et al. Common and distinct structural features of Salmonella injectisome and flagellar basal body. Sci Rep. 2013;3:3369.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1. Hersent O, Petit J-P, Gurle D. Beyond VoIP Protocols. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2005.
An edited book
1. Koyutürk M, Subramaniam S, Grama A, editors. Functional Coherence of Molecular Networks in Bioinformatics. New York, NY: Springer; 2012.
A chapter in an edited book
1. Zhao G, Chen K, Tan H, Wang X, You M, Xiao J, et al. A Multilevel Security Model for Search Engine Over Integrated Data. In: Nguyen NT, Kowalczyk R, Xhafa F, editors. Transactions on Computational Collective Intelligence XIX. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2015. p. 45–68.

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 Zoology.

Blog post
1. Hale T. Why Have Rivers In France Turned Vivid Green This Week? IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016.

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
1. Government Accountability Office. Older Americans: Inability to Repay Student Loans May Affect Financial Security of a Small Percentage of Retirees. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2014 Sep. Report No.: GAO-14-866T.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation
1. Klyce LR. Assessing parent-child agreement on an eating disorder symptom questionnaire [Doctoral dissertation]. [Mississippi State, MS]: Mississippi State University; 2008.

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
1. Kelly M. Stranger in the Night. New York Times. 2009 Jan 24;CY3.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [1].
This sentence cites two references [1,2].
This sentence cites four references [1–4].

About the journal

Full journal titleFrontiers in Zoology
AbbreviationFront. Zool.
ISSN (online)1742-9994
ScopeAnimal Science and Zoology
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

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