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

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

Kitayama, K. (2005). Comment on “Ecosystem properties and forest decline in contrasting long-term chronosequences.” Science 308, 633; author reply 633.

A journal article with 2 authors

Tibbetts, E. A., and Dale, J. (2004). A socially enforced signal of quality in a paper wasp. Nature 432, 218–222.

A journal article with 3 authors

Huang, J., Pray, C., and Rozelle, S. (2002). Enhancing the crops to feed the poor. Nature 418, 678–684.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Bildirici, L., Smith, P., Tzavelas, C., Horefti, E., and Rickwood, D. (2000). Transfection of cells by immunoporation. Nature 405, 298.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Anichini, G., Carraro, F., Geslin, P., and Guille-Escuret, G. (2017). Technicity vs Scientificity. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Scerri, E., and McIntyre, L. eds. (2015). Philosophy of Chemistry: Growth of a New Discipline. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

A chapter in an edited book

Miclaus, G. D., and Ples, H. (2014). “Coronary Angiography,” in Atlas of CT Angiography: Normal and Pathologic Findings, ed. H. Ples (Cham: Springer International Publishing), 85–129.

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 Materials.

Blog post

Fang, J. (2014). Wolves Cooperate With Each Other, Dogs Form Hierarchies. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/wolves-cooperate-each-other-dogs-form-hierarchies/ (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 (1992). Environmental Protection: Rocket Tests in Mississippi to Be Heavily Restricted. 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

Oh, Y. (2006). Prediction of Steady State Response in Dynamic Mode Atomic Force Microscopy and Its Applications in Nano-metrology. Columbus, OH: Ohio 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

Saslow, L. (2006). On the Home Lawn, Where Alligators Roam. New York Times, 14LI2.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Kitayama, 2005).
This sentence cites two references (Tibbetts and Dale, 2004; Kitayama, 2005).

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

Two authors: (Tibbetts and Dale, 2004)
Three or more authors: (Bildirici et al., 2000)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Materials
Abbreviation	Front. Mater.
ISSN (online)	2296-8016
Scope