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

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

Hunten, D. M. (2004). Atmospheric science. An iron deficiency in polar mesospheric clouds. Science 304, 395–396.

A journal article with 2 authors

Coudreuse, D., and Nurse, P. (2010). Driving the cell cycle with a minimal CDK control network. Nature 468, 1074–1079.

A journal article with 3 authors

DeRenzo, C., Reese, K. J., and Seydoux, G. (2003). Exclusion of germ plasm proteins from somatic lineages by cullin-dependent degradation. Nature 424, 685–689.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Varmus, H., Klausner, R., Zerhouni, E., Acharya, T., Daar, A. S., and Singer, P. A. (2003). Public health. Grand Challenges in Global Health. Science 302, 398–399.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Mysak, J. (2011). Encyclopedia of Municipal Bonds. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Manolopoulos, Y. (2006). R-Trees: Theory and Applications., eds. A. Nanopoulos, A. N. Papadopoulos, and Y. Theodoridis. London: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Joung, M., Baldick, R., and Kristiansen, T. (2013). “Generator Ownership of Financial Transmission Rights and Market Power,” in Financial Transmission Rights: Analysis, Experiences and Prospects, eds. J. Rosellón and T. Kristiansen (London: Springer), 129–155.

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 Communication.

Blog post

O`Callaghan, J. (2016). 5 Worlds Elon Musk Could Colonize In The Solar System. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/space/5-worlds-elon-musk-could-colonize-in-the-solar-system/ (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

Government Accountability Office (2009). Federal Aviation Administration: Human Capital System Incorporates Many Leading Practices, but Improving Employees’ Satisfaction with Their Workplace Remains a Challenge. 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

Holland, J. H. (2010). Investigating the relationship between the policy implementation process and the utilization of information technology in a constitutional republic: The case of I-269 NEPA process. Mississippi State, MS: Mississippi State University.

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

Youssef, N. (2017). 2 Paths for Yemen’s War-Scarred Children: Combat or Marriage. New York Times, A9.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Hunten, 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Hunten, 2004; Coudreuse and Nurse, 2010).

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

Two authors: (Coudreuse and Nurse, 2010)
Three or more authors: (Varmus et al., 2003)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Communication
Abbreviation	Front. Commun.
ISSN (online)	2297-900X
Scope