How to format your references using the Frontiers in Systems Physiology citation style

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

Brown, G. E., Jr (2001). Surface science. How minerals react with water. Science 294, 67–69.

A journal article with 2 authors

Sattler, A., and Parkin, G. (2010). Cleaving carbon-carbon bonds by inserting tungsten into unstrained aromatic rings. Nature 463, 523–526.

A journal article with 3 authors

Nasrallah, M. E., Liu, P., and Nasrallah, J. B. (2002). Generation of self-incompatible Arabidopsis thaliana by transfer of two S locus genes from A. lyrata. Science 297, 247–249.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Hatakeyama, T., Dai, P., Harada, Y., Hino, H., Tsukahara, F., Maru, Y., et al. (2013). Connexin43 functions as a novel interacting partner of heat shock cognate protein 70. Sci. Rep. 3, 2719.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Soustelle, M. (2016). Thermodynamics of Surfaces and Capillary Systems. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Nepal, S., Paris, C., and Georgakopoulos, D. eds. (2015). Social Media for Government Services., 1st ed. 2015. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

van Polen, M. G. T., Moura, G. C. M., and Pras, A. (2011). “Finding and Analyzing Evil Cities on the Internet,” in Managing the Dynamics of Networks and Services: 5th International Conference on Autonomous Infrastructure, Management, and Security, AIMS 2011, Nancy, France, June 13-17, 2011. Proceedings, eds. I. Chrisment, A. Couch, R. Badonnel, and M. Waldburger (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer), 38–48.

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 Systems Physiology.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2014). You Could Be Flying In A Windowless Plane Within A Decade. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/technology/uk-company-wants-make-windowless-planes-within-decade/ (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 (1974). Procurement Equipment for New York Postal Data Center. 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

Thornsberry, J. L. (2010). Freshman transition and its effectiveness on student success as measured by improved attendance, improved grades, decreased discipline referrals, and decreased dropout rate. St. Charles, MO: Lindenwood 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

Kelly, C. (2009). Antiques Dealers Still Scoring Big Sales. New York Times, B6.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Brown, 2001).
This sentence cites two references (Brown, 2001; Sattler and Parkin, 2010).

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

Two authors: (Sattler and Parkin, 2010)
Three or more authors: (Hatakeyama et al., 2013)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Systems Physiology
Abbreviation	Front. Physiol.
ISSN (online)	1664-042X
Scope	Physiology Physiology (medical)