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Frontiers journals Citation Generator
Generate references in Frontiers journals from a DOI or link in seconds. CitApp renders this style with citeproc, the same engine as Zotero and Mendeley, so every comma matches the spec. Free for students, no sign-up to try.
What a Frontiers journals reference looks like
Frontiers journals is an author-date style: the in-text citation gives the author surname and year in parentheses.
Rendered live from the same engine CitApp uses in the app:
Journal article
Babonis, L. S., and Martindale, M. Q. (2022). A novel regulatory gene network in cnidarians. PNAS 119, e2113701119. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2113701119
Book
Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press.
Web page
IPCC (2021). Climate change 2021: the physical science basis. Available at: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/ (Accessed July 15, 2026).
In-text citation
(Babonis and Martindale, 2022)
Journal article with 26 authors
Harris, C. R., Millman, K. J., van der Walt, S. J., Gommers, R., Virtanen, P., Cournapeau, D., et al. (2020). Array programming with NumPy. Nature 585, 357–362. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2649-2
Frontiers journals at a glance
Read from the style file and checked against the examples above.
- For a paper with 26 authors, the reference list names the first 6 authors and shortens the rest.
- In the text, the same paper becomes (Harris et al., 2020).
- First names are shortened to initials.
- DOIs are printed with a "doi:" prefix.
- Web pages include the date you accessed them.
- The reference list is sorted alphabetically by author.
- The reference list uses a hanging indent.
- The style file was last updated in February 2024.
The guide this style follows: frontiersin.org
How Frontiers journals compares with APA Style 7th edition
Where Frontiers journals differs:
- For a paper with 26 authors, the reference list names the first 6 authors and shortens the rest.
- DOIs are printed with a "doi:" prefix.
- Web pages include the date you accessed them.
- The reference list is single-spaced, where APA Style 7th edition is double-spaced.
- In the text it writes (Babonis and Martindale, 2022) where APA Style 7th edition writes (Babonis & Martindale, 2022).
The same journal article in APA Style 7th edition
Babonis, L. S., & Martindale, M. Q. (2022). A novel regulatory gene network in cnidarians. PNAS, 119(19), e2113701119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2113701119
Frequently asked questions
How many authors does Frontiers journals list?
For a paper with 26 authors, the reference list names the first 6 authors and shortens the rest. In the text, the same paper becomes (Harris et al., 2020).
How does Frontiers journals handle DOIs and web pages?
DOIs are printed with a "doi:" prefix. Web pages include the date you accessed them.
How is the reference list ordered in Frontiers journals?
The reference list is sorted alphabetically by author. The reference list uses a hanging indent.
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