How to format your references using the Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics citation style

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

Nakano A. Cell biology: Polarized transport in the Golgi apparatus. Nature (2015) 521:427–428.

A journal article with 2 authors

Dickman DK, Davis GW. The schizophrenia susceptibility gene dysbindin controls synaptic homeostasis. Science (2009) 326:1127–1130.

A journal article with 3 authors

Hurtley S, Ash C, Roberts L. Tuberculosis & malaria. Landscapes of infection. Introduction. Science (2010) 328:841.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Bourc’his D, Xu GL, Lin CS, Bollman B, Bestor TH. Dnmt3L and the establishment of maternal genomic imprints. Science (2001) 294:2536–2539.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Burk F. Lebesgue Measure and Integration. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (1997).

An edited book

Seki T, Sawamoto K, Parent JM, Alvarez-Buylla A eds. Neurogenesis in the Adult Brain II: Clinical Implications. Tokyo: Springer Japan. (2011). XIII, 211 p p.

A chapter in an edited book

Kurtenbach S, Mannheim T, Hüsing M, Corves B. “Content and Realization of Education in Mechanism Theory at RWTH Aachen University.,” In: García-Prada JC, Castejón C, editors. New Trends in Educational Activity in the Field of Mechanism and Machine Theory. Mechanisms and Machine Science. Cham: Springer International Publishing (2014). p. 39–46

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 Research Metrics and Analytics.

Blog post

Andrew E. The African Snakebite ‘Crisis’ Is Nothing New: We’ve Been Worried About Antivenom For Decades. IFLScience (2015) https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/african-snakebite-crisis-nothing-new-we-ve-been-worried-about-antivenom-decades/ [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. Education and Employment Issue Area: Active Assignments. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. (1998).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Alsaadi A. Smart smoke and fire detection with wireless and global system for mobile technology. [Doctoral dissertation]. Long Beach, CA: California State University, Long Beach. (2016).

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

Peters JW. A Conspiracy Theorist, His False Comey Tweet And a Runaway Story. New York Times (2017)A22.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (1).
This sentence cites two references (1,2).
This sentence cites four references (1–4).

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics
Abbreviation	Front. Res. Metr. Anal.
ISSN (online)	2504-0537
Scope