How to format your references using the PLOS Computational Biology citation style

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

Carbillon L. Comment on “Maternal oxytocin triggers a transient inhibitory switch in GABA signaling in the fetal brain during delivery.” Science. 2007;317: 197; author reply 197.

A journal article with 2 authors

Lionetti D, Agapie T. Inorganic chemistry: How calcium affects oxygen formation. Nature. 2014;513: 495–496.

A journal article with 3 authors

Renault L, Guibert B, Cherfils J. Structural snapshots of the mechanism and inhibition of a guanine nucleotide exchange factor. Nature. 2003;426: 525–530.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Li Z-Y, Wang Y-Z, He L-M, Zheng H-J. Metabolic profiles of prokaryotic and eukaryotic communities in deep-sea sponge Neamphius huxleyi [corrected]. indicated by metagenomics. Sci Rep. 2014;4: 3895.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Segal HP. Utopias. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell; 2012.

An edited book

Golomb SW, Parker MG, Pott A, Winterhof A, editors. Sequences and Their Applications - SETA 2008: 5th International Conference Lexington, KY, USA, September 14-18, 2008 Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2008.

A chapter in an edited book

Wu C-H. Greater Coherence in Global Economic Policymaking: Progress and Prospect. In: Herrmann C, Krajewski M, Terhechte JP, editors. European Yearbook of International Economic Law 2014. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013. pp. 67–92.

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 Computational Biology.

Blog post

Hale T. NASA Will Upload Images Of Earth From Space Every Day. In: IFLScience. IFLScience; 20 Oct 2015.

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. Corps of Engineers: Extent and Status of Expedited Permit Processing for Public-Utility Companies, Natural Gas Companies, and Railroad Carriers. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2017 Aug. Report No.: GAO-17-678R.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Bristow LW. There is an old woman: The final stage of individuation. Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute. 2009.

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

THEODORE HERMANBONNIE BURKEDANIEL ROTHFRANKLIN L. TOWBERMARK ARONOFFKATHLEEN KELLY(Prof.) HOWARD A. SCARROWSTEPHEN JOEL TRACHTENBERG. Letters; America’s Burden in the Afghanistan Crisis Impotence in the Face of Soviet Aggression Let Russian Commerce Have an Ice-Free Port Set for San Juan Hill? The Sounds Of Mandarin Sex and the Monarchy A Single-Issue Party’s Clout Errant Philanthropy. New York Times. 3 Feb 1980: The Week In ReviewE20.

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 Computational Biology
Abbreviation	PLoS Comput. Biol.
ISSN (print)	1553-734X
ISSN (online)	1553-7358
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Genetics Molecular Biology Computational Theory and Mathematics Ecology Modelling and Simulation Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience