How to format your references using the Behavioral Neuroscience citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Behavioral Neuroscience. 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	Download the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles 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

Amzica, F. (2010). Comment on “The human K-complex represents an isolated cortical down-state.” Science (New York, N.Y.), 330(6000), 35; author reply 35.

A journal article with 2 authors

Trampert, J., & van Heijst, H. J. (2002). Global azimuthal anisotropy in the transition zone. Science (New York, N.Y.), 296(5571), 1297–1299.

A journal article with 3 authors

Lee, J., Abdeen, A. A., & Kilian, K. A. (2014). Rewiring mesenchymal stem cell lineage specification by switching the biophysical microenvironment. Scientific Reports, 4, 5188.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Sun, S., Li, F., Liu, F., Wang, J., & Peng, X. (2014). Fluorescence detecting of paraquat using host-guest chemistry with cucurbit[8]uril. Scientific Reports, 4, 3570.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Benslama, M., Kiamouche, W., & Batatia, H. (2015). Connections Management Strategies in Satellite Cellular Networks. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Baxter, J. (2016). Speaking as Women Leaders: Meetings in Middle Eastern and Western Contexts (H. Al A’ali, Ed.). Palgrave Macmillan UK.

A chapter in an edited book

Xieqing, W., Chaogang, X., Zaiting, L., & Genquan, Z. (2006). Catalytic Processes for Light Olefin Production. In C. S. Hsu & P. R. Robinson (Eds.), Practical Advances in Petroleum Processing (pp. 149–168). Springer.

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 Behavioral Neuroscience.

Blog post

Andrew, D. (2015, September 7). This Animation Shows You Exactly How Many Internet Cables Are Under The Ocean. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/technology/there-enough-internet-cable-under-sea-circle-earth-22-times/

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. (2010). NextGen Air Transportation System: FAA’s Metrics Can Be Used to Report on Status of Individual Programs, but Not of Overall NextGen Implementation or Outcomes (GAO-10-629). 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

Stephens, A. H. (2012). William Harold Fletcher (b. 1923): His life and career in music education at Oklahoma Christian University, 1950–2012 [Doctoral dissertation]. University of Arizona.

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

Pipher, M. (2014, December 27). Nebraska’s Lonely Progressives. New York Times, A17.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Amzica, 2010).
This sentence cites two references (Amzica, 2010; Trampert & van Heijst, 2002).

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

Two authors: (Trampert & van Heijst, 2002)
Three authors: (Lee et al., 2014)
6 or more authors: (Sun et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Behavioral Neuroscience
Abbreviation	Behav. Neurosci.
ISSN (print)	0735-7044
ISSN (online)	1939-0084
Scope	Behavioral Neuroscience