How to format your references using the Forensic Science International: Genetics citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Forensic Science International: 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 reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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

[1]

S. Wu, State tomography via weak measurements, Sci. Rep. 3 (2013) 1193.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

J.L. Heilbron, W.F. Bynum, 1904 and all that, Nature 426 (2003) 761–764.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

J. Harrington, S. Palethorpe, C.I. Watson, Does the Queen speak the Queen’s English?, Nature 408 (2000) 927–928.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

C. Bakal, J. Aach, G. Church, N. Perrimon, Quantitative morphological signatures define local signaling networks regulating cell morphology, Science 316 (2007) 1753–1756.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

K.A. Fryirs, G.J. Brierley, Geomorphic Analysis of River Systems, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2012.

An edited book

[1]

M. Kemper, AdvancED Flash Interface Design, Apress, Berkeley, CA, 2006.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

V. Pham, M.H.R. Khouzani, C. Cid, Optimal Contracts for Outsourced Computation, in: R. Poovendran, W. Saad (Eds.), Decision and Game Theory for Security: 5th International Conference, GameSec 2014, Los Angeles, CA, USA, November 6-7, 2014. Proceedings, Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2014: pp. 79–98.

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 Forensic Science International: Genetics.

Blog post

[1]

J. Fang, How Mongoose Moms Protect Their Pups Before They’re Born, IFLScience (2016). https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/how-mongoose-moms-protect-their-pups-before-theyre-born/ (accessed October 30, 2018).

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

[1]

Government Accountability Office, Federal Capitation Support and Its Role in the Operation of Medical Schools, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1978.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

W.E. Koenig, Leadership for the whole in the mythic field of C. G. Jung’s unconscious processes, Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute, 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

[1]

M. Pilon, For Men, Sport’s Stigma Dampens Appeal, New York Times (2012) SP7.

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	Forensic Science International: Genetics
Abbreviation	Forensic Sci. Int. Genet.
ISSN (print)	1872-4973
Scope	Genetics Pathology and Forensic Medicine