How to format your references using the PLOS Genetics citation style

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

Smaglik P. Bricks & mortar. Nature. 2004;430: 384.

A journal article with 2 authors

Bucknall DG, Anderson HL. Chemistry. Polymers get organized. Science. 2003;302: 1904–1905.

A journal article with 3 authors

McNally A, Prier CK, MacMillan DWC. Discovery of an α-amino C-H arylation reaction using the strategy of accelerated serendipity. Science. 2011;334: 1114–1117.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Wang H, Liu T, Huang Y, Fang Y, Liu R, Wang S, et al. Plasmon-driven surface catalysis in hybridized plasmonic gap modes. Sci Rep. 2014;4: 7087.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Moskowitz HR, Porretta S, Silcher M. Concept Research in Food Product Design and Development. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing; 2008.

An edited book

Averbuch AZ. Spline and Spline Wavelet Methods with Applications to Signal and Image Processing: Volume I: Periodic Splines. Neittaanmaki P, Zheludev VA, editors. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

Chari V, Nelakanti A, Jakkoju C, Jawahar CV. Planar Scene Modeling from Quasiconvex Subproblems. In: Zha H, Taniguchi R-I, Maybank S, editors. Computer Vision – ACCV 2009: 9th Asian Conference on Computer Vision, Xi’an, September 23-27, 2009, Revised Selected Papers, Part II. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2010. pp. 34–43.

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 Genetics.

Blog post

Taub B. Evidence Suggests Missing Students In Mexico Were Not Incinerated By A Drug Cartel. In: IFLScience. IFLScience; 14 Sep 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. Federal Research: Information on DOE’s Laboratory-Directed R&D Program. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2004 Apr. Report No.: GAO-04-489.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Tang J. Understanding the college experiences of Cambodian American students. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach. 2013.

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

Feeney K. QUICK BITE | Peapack; Chocolate And a Touch Of Chic. New York Times. 15 Oct 2006: 14NJ11.

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 Genetics
Abbreviation	PLoS Genet.
ISSN (print)	1553-7390
ISSN (online)	1553-7404
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Cancer Research Genetics Molecular Biology Genetics(clinical)