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

Leggett T. Physics. Superfluidity in a crystal? Science. 2004;305: 1921–1922.

A journal article with 2 authors

Swinnen J, Squicciarini P. Global food supply. Mixed messages on prices and food security. Science. 2012;335: 405–406.

A journal article with 3 authors

Shelly DR, Beroza GC, Ide S. Non-volcanic tremor and low-frequency earthquake swarms. Nature. 2007;446: 305–307.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Kim JB, Porreca GJ, Song L, Greenway SC, Gorham JM, Church GM, et al. Polony multiplex analysis of gene expression (PMAGE) in mouse hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Science. 2007;316: 1481–1484.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Knuth E. Trading Between the Lines. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2011.

An edited book

van den Dool L. The Quest for Good Urban Governance: Theoretical Reflections and International Practices. Hendriks F, Gianoli A, Schaap L, editors. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden; 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

Benferhat S, Lagrue S, Tabia K. Interval-Based Possibilistic Networks. In: Straccia U, Calì A, editors. Scalable Uncertainty Management: 8th International Conference, SUM 2014, Oxford, UK, September 15-17, 2014 Proceedings. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014. pp. 37–50.

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

Andrew E. Do Brain Interventions To Treat Disease Change The Essence Of Who We Are? In: IFLScience [Internet]. IFLScience; 3 Oct 2015 [cited 30 Oct 2018]. Available: https://www.iflscience.com/brain/do-brain-interventions-treat-disease-change-essence-who-we-are/

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. European Aeronautics: Strong Government Presence in Industry Structure and Research and Development Support. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1994 Mar. Report No.: NSIAD-94-71.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Banks GM. The revolution will not be gender-ized. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach. 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

Pilon M, Lehren AW. A Tennis Board Woven With Conflicts. New York Times. 22 Aug 2014: D1.

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)