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

Hernandez ER. No room on the carousel for meeting of like minds. Nature. 2000;407: 285.

A journal article with 2 authors

Masiello CA, Louchouarn P. Ecology. Fire in the ocean. Science. 2013;340: 287–288.

A journal article with 3 authors

Gunanathan C, Ben-David Y, Milstein D. Direct synthesis of amides from alcohols and amines with liberation of H2. Science. 2007;317: 790–792.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Marión RM, Strati K, Li H, Murga M, Blanco R, Ortega S, et al. A p53-mediated DNA damage response limits reprogramming to ensure iPS cell genomic integrity. Nature. 2009;460: 1149–1153.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Flynn JR. How to Improve Your Mind. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell; 2012.

An edited book

Natraj A, Cameron S, Melhuish C, Witkowski M, editors. Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems: 14th Annual Conference, TAROS 2013, Oxford, UK, August 28--30, 2013, Revised Selected Papers. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

Sheaff MT, Singh N. The Thyroid Gland. In: Singh N, editor. Cytopathology: An Introduction. London: Springer; 2013. pp. 143–178.

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

O`Callaghan J. Woman Who Claims She Is “Allergic” To Wi-Fi Signals Given Compensation By French Court. In: IFLScience [Internet]. IFLScience; 1 Sep 2015 [cited 30 Oct 2018]. Available: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/woman-who-claims-she-allergic-wi-fi-signals-given-compensation-french-court/

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. Utilization of the United States Coast Guard High Endurance Cutter Fleet. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1970 Nov. Report No.: B-114851.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Ugwu RI. Perceptions of elementary teachers from an urban school district in Southern California regarding their inquiry-based science instructional practices, assessment methods, and professional development. Doctoral dissertation, Pepperdine University. 2012.

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

Wines M. Anger Follows an Accusation of Voter Fraud. New York Times. 10 Sep 2017: A16.

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