How to format your references using the PLOS Pathogens citation style

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

McNutt M. Climate change impacts. Science. 2013;341: 435.

A journal article with 2 authors

Goulder LH, Stavins RN. Discounting: an eye on the future. Nature. 2002;419: 673–674.

A journal article with 3 authors

Green SP, Jones C, Stasch A. Stable magnesium(I) compounds with Mg-Mg bonds. Science. 2007;318: 1754–1757.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Ives A, Ronet C, Prevel F, Ruzzante G, Fuertes-Marraco S, Schutz F, et al. Leishmania RNA virus controls the severity of mucocutaneous leishmaniasis. Science. 2011;331: 775–778.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Breitmaier E. Vom NMR-Spektrum zur Strukturformel organischer Verbindungen. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2005.

An edited book

Sultana RG, editor. Educators of the Mediterranean… …Up Close and Personal: Critical Voices from South Europe and the MENA region. Rotterdam: SensePublishers; 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

Lyons AC, Mondragon AEC, Piller F, Poler R. Mass Customisation: A Strategy for Customer-Centric Enterprises. In: Coronado Mondragon AE, Piller F, Poler R, editors. Customer-Driven Supply Chains: From Glass Pipelines to Open Innovation Networks. London: Springer; 2012. pp. 71–94.

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 Pathogens.

Blog post

Andrew E. Prey’s Eye View of Eagle Flight. In: IFLScience. IFLScience; 3 Dec 2013.

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. President’s Third Special Message for FY 1981. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1981 Feb. Report No.: OGC-81-3.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Tucker MS. Phenotypic and genotypic analysis of in vitro selected artemisinin resistant Plasmodium falciparum. Doctoral dissertation, University of South Florida. 2010.

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

Wihbey J, Beaudet M. Financial Disclosure, Wrapped in Secrecy. New York Times. 4 Oct 2016: 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 Pathogens
Abbreviation	PLoS Pathog.
ISSN (print)	1553-7366
ISSN (online)	1553-7374
Scope	Genetics Molecular Biology Immunology Microbiology Parasitology Virology