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

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

Socha, J. J. (2014). Applied Physics. Of snakes and robots. Science 346, 160–161.

A journal article with 2 authors

Brett, M. J., and Hawkeye, M. M. (2008). Materials science. New materials at a glance. Science 319, 1192–1193.

A journal article with 3 authors

Mojzsis, S. J., Harrison, T. M., and Pidgeon, R. T. (2001). Oxygen-isotope evidence from ancient zircons for liquid water at the Earth’s surface 4,300 Myr ago. Nature 409, 178–181.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Lauterbach, M. A., Guillon, M., Soltani, A., and Emiliani, V. (2013). STED microscope with spiral phase contrast. Sci. Rep. 3, 2050.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Paolella, M. S. (2006). Fundamental Probability. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

L’Abate, L. ed. (2012). Paradigms in Theory Construction. New York, NY: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Bauer, A. L., and Rohlf, T. (2012). “Investigating the Role of Cross-Talk Between Chemical and Stromal Factors in Endothelial Cell Phenotype Determination,” in Modeling Tumor Vasculature: Molecular, Cellular, and Tissue Level Aspects and Implications, ed. T. L. Jackson (New York, NY: Springer), 79–101.

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 Virology.

Blog post

Davis, J. (2017). One In Four Bee Species In The US At Risk Of Extinction. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/one-in-four-bee-species-in-the-us-at-risk-of-extinction/ (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 (1985). School District Officials Face Problems in Dealing With Asbestos in Their Schools. 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

Carolina, D. S. (2009). A qualitative study of the healthcare experiences and health information acquisition of African American men. Phoenix, AZ: University of Phoenix.

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

Couturier, K. (2017). The Agony, and Occasional Rewards, of the Overbooked Flight. 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 (Socha, 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Brett and Hawkeye, 2008; Socha, 2014).

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

Two authors: (Brett and Hawkeye, 2008)
Three or more authors: (Lauterbach et al., 2013)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Virology
Abbreviation	Front. Microbiol.
ISSN (online)	1664-302X
Scope	Microbiology Microbiology (medical)