How to format your references using the Functional Plant Biology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Functional Plant Biology. 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
Bohannon J (2008) The Gonzo Scientist. Calling all dancing scientists! Science (New York, NY) 322, 186.
A journal article with 2 authors
Curry Rogers K, Forster CA (2001) The last of the dinosaur titans: a new sauropod from Madagascar. Nature 412, 530–534.
A journal article with 3 authors
Doebeli M, Hauert C, Killingback T (2004) The evolutionary origin of cooperators and defectors. Science (New York, NY) 306, 859–862.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Kishikawa T, Otsuka M, Yoshikawa T, Ohno M, Takata A, Shibata C, Kondo Y, Akanuma M, Yoshida H, Koike K (2013) Regulation of the expression of the liver cancer susceptibility gene MICA by microRNAs. Scientific Reports 3, 2739.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Noar J (2014) ‘Interceptive Orthodontics.’ (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Oxford, UK)
An edited book
Raoux S, Wuttig M (Eds) (2009) ‘Phase Change Materials.’ (Springer US: Boston, MA)
A chapter in an edited book
Frank RL, Lieb EH (2012) A New, Rearrangement-free Proof of the Sharp Hardy–Littlewood–Sobolev Inequality. ‘Spectral Theory, Function Spaces and Inequalities: New Techniques and Recent Trends’. (Eds BM Brown, J Lang, IG Wood) pp. 55–67. (Springer: Basel)

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 Functional Plant Biology.

Blog post
Fang J (2015) Sea Stars Who Clone Themselves Live Longer, Healthier Lives. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/sea-stars-who-clone-themselves-live-longer-healthier-lives/.

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 (2017) Rural Broadband Deployment: Improved Consistency with Leading Practices Could Enhance Management of Loan and Grant Programs. U.S. Government Printing Office, GAO-17-301. (Washington, DC)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
Purnell CP (2012) Exploring teachers’ perceptions of professional development in virtual learning teams. Doctoral dissertation, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL.

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
Poniewozik J (2016) A Vanished Woman’s Strange Return. New York Times C1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Bohannon 2008).
This sentence cites two references (Curry Rogers and Forster 2001; Bohannon 2008).

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

  • Two authors: (Curry Rogers and Forster 2001)
  • Three or more authors: (Kishikawa et al. 2013)

About the journal

Full journal titleFunctional Plant Biology
AbbreviationFunct. Plant Biol.
ISSN (print)1445-4408
ISSN (online)1445-4416
ScopeAgronomy and Crop Science
Plant Science

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