How to format your references using the PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases citation style

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

Nieto MA. Epithelial plasticity: a common theme in embryonic and cancer cells. Science. 2013;342: 1234850.

A journal article with 2 authors

Perepichka DF, Rosei F. Chemistry. Extending polymer conjugation into the second dimension. Science. 2009;323: 216–217.

A journal article with 3 authors

Våge S, Storesund JE, Thingstad TF. SAR11 viruses and defensive host strains. Nature. 2013;499: E3-4.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Zheng J, Shen W, He DZ, Long KB, Madison LD, Dallos P. Prestin is the motor protein of cochlear outer hair cells. Nature. 2000;405: 149–155.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hitz CB, Ewing J, Hecht J. Introduction to Laser Technology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2012.

An edited book

Reidy J, Hacking N, McLucas B, editors. Radiological Interventions in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

Galeotti JP, Furia CA, May E, Fraser G, Zeller A. DynaMate: Dynamically Inferring Loop Invariants for Automatic Full Functional Verification. In: Yahav E, editor. Hardware and Software: Verification and Testing: 10th International Haifa Verification Conference, HVC 2014, Haifa, Israel, November 18-20, 2014 Proceedings. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014. pp. 48–53.

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 Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Blog post

Andrew D. What Would The Ancient Astrologers Have Told Us About 2017? In: IFLScience [Internet]. IFLScience; 4 Jan 2017 [cited 30 Oct 2018]. Available: https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/what-would-the-ancient-astrologers-have-told-us-about-2017/

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. District of Columbia: D.C. Public Schools Inappropriately Used Gas Utility Contract for Renovations. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2001 Sep. Report No.: GAO-01-963.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Anderson D. Chamber Music in Early Piano Study: A Guide to Repertoire. Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati. 2004.

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

Baker AL, David Goodman J. Brooklyn Man Is Sought in Two Deaths at Hotels. New York Times. 16 Sep 2015: A23.

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 Neglected Tropical Diseases
Abbreviation	PLoS Negl. Trop. Dis.
ISSN (online)	1935-2735
Scope	Infectious Diseases Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health