How to format your references using the PLOS Biology citation style

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

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

Nusse R. Cell signalling: Disarming Wnt. Nature. 2015;519: 163–164.

A journal article with 2 authors

Beghein C, Trampert J. Robust normal mode constraints on inner-core anisotropy from model space search. Science. 2003;299: 552–555.

A journal article with 3 authors

Sweeney KE, Roering JJ, Ellis C. GEOMORPHOLOGY. Experimental evidence for hillslope control of landscape scale. Science. 2015;349: 51–53.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Kuo H-C, Hui S, Choi J, Asiegbu FO, Valkonen JPT, Lee Y-H. Secret lifestyles of Neurospora crassa. Sci Rep. 2014;4: 5135.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Chen K-H. Power Management Techniques for Integrated Circuit Design. Singapore: John Wiley & Sons Singapore Pte. Ltd; 2016.

An edited book

Martínez-Herrero R. Characterization of Partially Polarized Light Fields. Mejías PM, Piquero G, editors. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009.

A chapter in an edited book

Revathi P, Hemalatha M. SMS Based HPCCDD Algorithm for the Identification of Leaf Spot Diseases. In: S M, Kumar SS, editors. Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Signal and Image Processing 2012 (ICSIP 2012): Volume 1. New Delhi: Springer India; 2013. pp. 49–57.

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 PLOS Biology.

Blog post

Hale T. This “Temporary Tattoo” Tells You If You Are Too Drunk. In: IFLScience. IFLScience; 4 Aug 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

Government Accountability Office. Tactical Airlift: Observations Concerning the Air Force’s C-27 Proposal. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1988 Apr. Report No.: NSIAD-88-124.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Schwartz KA. Dynamics of Teacher Self-Efficacy: Middle School Reading and Language Arts Teacher Responses on a Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale. Doctoral dissertation, University of South Florida. 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

Qiu L. Women and the Draft. New York Times. 27 Apr 2017: A13.

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	PLOS Biology
Abbreviation	PLoS Biol.
ISSN (print)	1544-9173
ISSN (online)	1545-7885
Scope	General Agricultural and Biological Sciences General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology General Immunology and Microbiology General Neuroscience