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

Sundqvist B. Mapping intermolecular bonding in C₆₀. Sci Rep. 2014;4: 6171.

A journal article with 2 authors

Machlis GE, McNutt MK. Disasters. Scenario-building for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Science. 2010;329: 1018–1019.

A journal article with 3 authors

Cannistraci CV, Alanis-Lobato G, Ravasi T. From link-prediction in brain connectomes and protein interactomes to the local-community-paradigm in complex networks. Sci Rep. 2013;3: 1613.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Wang D, Zhang Z, Zhu Z, Liang B. Magnetic structure and magnetic transport properties of graphene nanoribbons with sawtooth zigzag edges. Sci Rep. 2014;4: 7587.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Evans PW. Top Hat. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell; 2010.

An edited book

Akiyama J, Kano M, Sakai T, editors. Computational Geometry and Graphs: Thailand-Japan Joint Conference, TJJCCGG 2012, Bangkok, Thailand, December 6-8, 2012, Revised Selected Papers. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

Yip NM. Challenges to Public Housing in Post-colonial Hong Kong. In: Chen J, Stephens M, Man Y, editors. The Future of Public Housing: Ongoing Trends in the East and the West. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013. pp. 65–83.

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

Carpineti A. Earth’s Day Will Be One Minute Longer In 6.7 Million Years. In: IFLScience [Internet]. IFLScience; 7 Dec 2016 [cited 30 Oct 2018]. Available: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/earths-day-will-be-one-minute-longer-in-6-million-years/

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. Customs Service Modernization: Strategic Information Management Must Be Improved for National Automation Program to Succeed. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1996 May. Report No.: AIMD-96-57.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Smith J. The work expectations of individuals with developmental disabilities. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach. 2012.

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

St. John Kelly E. Circular Makes the Rounds and Residents Complain. New York Times. 10 May 1998: 148.

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