How to format your references using the Frontiers in Chemistry citation style

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

Laursen, L. (2014). A preventable cancer. Nature 516, S2-3.

A journal article with 2 authors

Wray, G. A., and Babbitt, C. C. (2008). Genetics. Enhancing gene regulation. Science 321, 1300–1301.

A journal article with 3 authors

Song, J., Ji, C., and Zhang, J. Z. H. (2013). Unveiling the gating mechanism of ECF transporter RibU. Sci. Rep. 3, 3566.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Li, Z. Y., Young, N. P., Di Vece, M., Palomba, S., Palmer, R. E., Bleloch, A. L., et al. (2008). Three-dimensional atomic-scale structure of size-selected gold nanoclusters. Nature 451, 46–48.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Waye, J. D., Aisenberg, J., and Rubin, P. H. (2013). Practical Colonoscopy. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

An edited book

Kerkhove, B. van, and Bendegem, J. P. van eds. (2007). Perspectives On Mathematical Practices: Bringing Together Philosophy of Mathematics, Sociology of Mathematics, and Mathematics Education. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

A chapter in an edited book

Dronamraju, K. R. (2012). “Personal Recollections of Victor,” in Victor McKusick and the History of Medical Genetics, eds. K. R. Dronamraju and C. A. Francomano (New York, NY: Springer), 35–38.

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 Frontiers in Chemistry.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2014). 10 Science Facts We Still Get Wrong. IFLScience.

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 (2007). Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites: Further Actions Needed to Effectively Manage Risks. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Tahira, A. (2017). Synthesis of Bivalent Organothiophosphate Inhibitors and Their Inhibition of Butyrylcholinesterase: Studies towards a Potential Treatment of Cognitive Loss Associated with Alzheimer’s Disease. Long Beach, CA: California State University, Long Beach.

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

Brantley, B. (2017). Stoppard for an Age of Uncertainty. New York Times, AR16.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Laursen, 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Wray and Babbitt, 2008; Laursen, 2014).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Wray and Babbitt, 2008)
Three or more authors: (Li et al., 2008)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Chemistry
Abbreviation	Front. Chem.
ISSN (online)	2296-2646
Scope	General Chemistry