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:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Download the output style file
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

1. Weaver K. Lab life: Scientists are snobs. Nature. 2013;495:167–8.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Muoio DM, Newgard CB. Diabetes: The good in fat. Nature. 2014;516:49–50.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Poulsen CJ, Ehlers TA, Insel N. Onset of convective rainfall during gradual late Miocene rise of the central Andes. Science. 2010;328:490–3.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Zhang LI, Tan AYY, Schreiner CE, Merzenich MM. Topography and synaptic shaping of direction selectivity in primary auditory cortex. Nature. 2003;424:201–5.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Higgs J, Titchen A. Professional Practice in Health, Education and the Creative Arts. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Science Ltd; 2008.

An edited book

1. Aldrich C. Unsupervised Process Monitoring and Fault Diagnosis with Machine Learning Methods. Auret L, editor. London: Springer; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Rasmussen I. Microblogging as Partner(s) in Teacher-Student Dialogues. In: Elstad E, editor. Educational Technology and Polycontextual Bridging. Rotterdam: SensePublishers; 2016. p. 63–82.

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. Fang J. Manhattan Insects Eat Tons of Garbage off the Streets Every Year [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2014 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/manhattan-insects-eat-tons-garbage-streets-every-year/

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. Food Assistance: Child Care Centers Sponsored by Schools Participating in the National School Lunch Program. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1998 Mar. Report No.: RCED-98-101R.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Tian CY. Studies of equilibrium conditions in housing markets [Doctoral dissertation]. [Washington, DC]: George Washington University; 2010.

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 C. When Turning Away Customers Will Help the Bottom Line. New York Times. 2015 Aug 27;B4.

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 title	Frontiers in Zoology
Abbreviation	Front. Zool.
ISSN (online)	1742-9994
Scope	Animal Science and Zoology Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

Research and Writing Guides