How to format your references using the PLOS ONE citation style

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

Mace R. Reproducing in cities. Science. 2008;319: 764–766.

A journal article with 2 authors

Cottrell E, Kelley KA. Redox heterogeneity in mid-ocean ridge basalts as a function of mantle source. Science. 2013;340: 1314–1317.

A journal article with 3 authors

Ramer MS, Priestley JV, McMahon SB. Functional regeneration of sensory axons into the adult spinal cord. Nature. 2000;403: 312–316.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Zhang P, Xiao BB, Hou XL, Zhu YF, Jiang Q. Layered SiC sheets: a potential catalyst for oxygen reduction reaction. Sci Rep. 2014;4: 3821.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Sauter M. 3G, 4G and Beyond-Bringing Networks, Devices and the Web Together. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2013.

An edited book

Llerena P, Matt M, editors. Innovation Policy in a Knowledge-Based Economy: Theory and Practice. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2005.

A chapter in an edited book

Ghoualmi L, Draa A, Chikhi S. Ear Feature Extraction Using a DWT-SIFT Hybrid. In: Abraham A, Jiang XH, Snášel V, Pan J-S, editors. Intelligent Data Analysis and Applications: Proceedings of the Second Euro-China Conference on Intelligent Data Analysis and Applications, ECC 2015. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015. pp. 37–47.

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 ONE.

Blog post

Davis J. Great Barrier Reef Under Threat Of Being Listed A “World Heritage Site In Danger.” In: IFLScience. IFLScience; 17 Aug 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. The Job Training Partnership Act: An Analysis of Support Cost Limits and Participant Characteristics. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1985 Nov. Report No.: HRD-86-16.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Anderson MS. Integrating Emergency Medical Services Into the Patient-Centered Medical Home. Doctoral dissertation, Capella University. 2017.

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

Paulson M. The Musical ‘The Prom’ Is Coming to Broadway. New York Times. 20 Oct 2017: C3.

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 ONE
Abbreviation	PLoS One
ISSN (online)	1932-6203
Scope	General Agricultural and Biological Sciences General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology General Medicine