How to format your references using the Biology of Sex Differences citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Biology of Sex Differences. 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 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

1. Farokhzad OC. Nanotechnology: Platelet mimicry. Nature. 2015;526:47–8.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Mel’nikov AS, Vinokur VM. Mesoscopic superconductor as a ballistic quantum switch. Nature. 2002;415:60–2.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Schuch R, Nelson D, Fischetti VA. A bacteriolytic agent that detects and kills Bacillus anthracis. Nature. 2002;418:884–9.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Mkhoyan KA, Batson PE, Cha J, Schaff WJ, Silcox J. Direct determination of local lattice polarity in crystals. Science. 2006;312:1354.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Lachin JM. Biostatistical Methods: The Assessment of Relative Risks. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2010.

An edited book

1. Emmert-Streib F, Dehmer M, editors. Information Theory and Statistical Learning. Boston, MA: Springer US; 2009.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Buonanno A. Gravitational Wave Astronomy. In: Lasota J-P, editor. Astronomy at the Frontiers of Science. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2011. p. 87–106.

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 Biology of Sex Differences.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. White Dwarf Merger Is Set To Prove Supernova Theory [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/space/white-dwarf-merger-set-prove-supernova-theory/

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

1. Government Accountability Office. National Transportation System: Options and Analytical Tools to Strengthen DOT’s Approach to Supporting Communities’ Access to the System. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2009 Jul. Report No.: GAO-09-753.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Whited JE. An Investigation of Struggling Learners’ Motivation to Read [Doctoral dissertation]. [ Lafayette, LA]: University of Louisiana; 2015.

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

1. Wasik JF. Regular Investing Smooths the Market’s Ups and Downs. New York Times. 2016 Oct 14;BU14.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

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	Biology of Sex Differences
Abbreviation	Biol. Sex Differ.
ISSN (online)	2042-6410
Scope