How to format your references using the Brain and Development citation style

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

[1]

Brumfiel G. Physics guidelines drop equal-responsibility clause. Nature 2002;420:258.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Hinchliffe P, Sazanov LA. Organization of iron-sulfur clusters in respiratory complex I. Science 2005;309:771–4.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Rubin KH, Fletcher CH 3rd, Sherman C. Fossiliferous Lana’i deposits formed by multiple events rather than a single giant tsunami. Nature 2000;408:675–81.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Musser RO, Hum-Musser SM, Eichenseer H, Peiffer M, Ervin G, Murphy JB, et al. Herbivory: caterpillar saliva beats plant defences. Nature 2002;416:599–600.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Rees PA. An Introduction to Zoo Biology and Management. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2011.

An edited book

[1]

Ciobanu G, Păun G, Pérez-Jiménez MJ, editors. Applications of Membrane Computing. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2006.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Jespers E, Okniński J. General Noetherian semigroup algebras. In: Okniński J, editor. Noetherian Semigroup Algebras, Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2007, p. 117–47.

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 Brain and Development.

Blog post

[1]

Andrew E. Can A Lack Of Love Be Deadly? IFLScience 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/can-lack-love-be-deadly/ (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

[1]

Government Accountability Office. Air Force Pilots: U.S. Air Force Requirements, Inventory, and Related Data. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1988.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Fino M. Fruit and vegetable intake and exercise practices of college students of color. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach, 2010.

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]

Chapman MM. 17-Year Sentence in Michigan Shooting. New York Times 2014:A16.

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	Brain and Development
Abbreviation	Brain Dev.
ISSN (print)	0387-7604
Scope	General Medicine Clinical Neurology Pediatrics, Perinatology, and Child Health Developmental Neuroscience