How to format your references using the Frontiers in Marine Science citation style

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

Ooi, T. (2011). Chemistry. Heat and light switch a chiral catalyst and its products. Science 331, 1395–1396.

A journal article with 2 authors

Shapiro, E., and Gil, B. (2008). Cell biology. RNA computing in a living cell. Science 322, 387–388.

A journal article with 3 authors

Bao, H., Lyons, J. R., and Zhou, C. (2008). Triple oxygen isotope evidence for elevated CO2 levels after a Neoproterozoic glaciation. Nature 453, 504–506.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Zhang, Z., Gildersleeve, J., Yang, Y.-Y., Xu, R., Loo, J. A., Uryu, S., et al. (2004). A new strategy for the synthesis of glycoproteins. Science 303, 371–373.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Huzurbazar, A. V. (2004). Flowgraph Models for Multistate Time-to-Event Data: Huzurbazar/Flowgraph Models. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Lubzens, E., Cerda, J., and Clark, M. eds. (2010). Dormancy and Resistance in Harsh Environments. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Snik, F., and Keller, C. U. (2013). “Astronomical Polarimetry: Polarized Views of Stars and Planets,” in Planets, Stars and Stellar Systems: Volume 2: Astronomical Techniques, Software, and Data, eds. T. D. Oswalt and H. E. Bond (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands), 175–221.

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 Marine Science.

Blog post

Carpineti, A. (2016). Sun’s Coronal Loops Recreated In The Lab. 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 (2009). Proprietary Schools: Stronger Department of Education Oversight Needed to Help Ensure Only Eligible Students Receive Federal Student Aid. 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

Poyaoan-Linzaga, M. R. (2014). The effects of patient communication in early intervention for falls among the Medicare patients. 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

Yablonsky, L. (2010). Power Nap. New York Times, ST3.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Ooi, 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Shapiro and Gil, 2008; Ooi, 2011).

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

Two authors: (Shapiro and Gil, 2008)
Three or more authors: (Zhang et al., 2004)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Marine Science
Abbreviation	Front. Mar. Sci.
ISSN (online)	2296-7745
Scope	Aquatic Science Oceanography Ocean Engineering Global and Planetary Change Water Science and Technology