How to format your references using the Frontiers in Mechanical Engineering citation style

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

Hyman, S. (2014). Mental health: depression needs large human-genetics studies. Nature 515, 189–191.

A journal article with 2 authors

Peppe, D. J., and Royer, D. L. (2015). ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE. Can climate feel the pressure? Science 348, 1210–1211.

A journal article with 3 authors

Nederbragt, A. J., van Loon, A. E., and Dictus, W. J. A. G. (2002). Evolutionary biology: hedgehog crosses the snail’s midline. Nature 417, 811–812.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Min, J.-J., Huo, X.-L., Xiang, L.-Y., Qin, Y.-Q., Chai, K.-Q., Wu, B., et al. (2014). Protective effect of Dl-3n-butylphthalide on learning and memory impairment induced by chronic intermittent hypoxia-hypercapnia exposure. Sci. Rep. 4, 5555.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Upreti, S. R. (2017). Process Modeling and Simulation for Chemical Engineers. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Ambos-Spies, K., Löwe, B., and Merkle, W. eds. (2009). Mathematical Theory and Computational Practice: 5th Conference on Computability in Europe, CiE 2009, Heidelberg, Germany, July 19-24, 2009. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Chalouan, A., Michard, A., Kadiri, K. E., Negro, F., Lamotte, D. F. de, Soto, J. I., et al. (2008). “The Rif Belt,” in Continental Evolution: The Geology of Morocco: Structure, Stratigraphy, and Tectonics of the Africa-Atlantic-Mediterranean Triple Junction, eds. A. Michard, O. Saddiqi, A. Chalouan, and D. F. de Lamotte (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer), 203–302.

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 Mechanical Engineering.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2015). As The US Heads To Climate Talks, It Seeks A Plan To ‘Trust But Verify.’ 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 (2005). Education’s Data Management Initiative: Significant Progress Made, but Better Planning Needed to Accomplish Project Goals. 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

Schellenberg, D. L. (2010). Divorced women, poverty, and the Social Security Act: A policy analysis. 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

(nyt), S. K. (2004). World Briefing | Europe: Russia: Admiral Convicted In Sub Deaths. New York Times, A6.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Hyman, 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Hyman, 2014; Peppe and Royer, 2015).

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

Two authors: (Peppe and Royer, 2015)
Three or more authors: (Min et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Mechanical Engineering
Abbreviation	Front. Mech. Eng.
ISSN (online)	2297-3079
Scope