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]

Bourne J. ECOLOGY: Louisiana’s Vanishing Wetlands: Going, Going . Science 2000;289:1860–3.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Zid BM, O’Shea EK. Promoter sequences direct cytoplasmic localization and translation of mRNAs during starvation in yeast. Nature 2014;514:117–21.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Fischle W, Wang Y, Allis CD. Binary switches and modification cassettes in histone biology and beyond. Nature 2003;425:475–9.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Zhang D, Wei D, Li Q, Ge X, Guo X, Xie Z, et al. High performance catalytic distillation using CNTs-based holistic catalyst for production of high quality biodiesel. Sci Rep 2014;4:4021.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Halpert B. Auditing Cloud Computing. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2011.

An edited book

[1]

Kandouz M, editor. Intercellular Communication in Cancer. 1st ed. 2015. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Löding C. Unambiguous Finite Automata. In: Béal M-P, Carton O, editors. Developments in Language Theory: 17th International Conference, DLT 2013, Marne-la-Vallée, France, June 18-21, 2013. Proceedings, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013, p. 29–30.

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]

Andrews R. Groundbreaking Skin Cancer Treatment Given Approval In Record Time. IFLScience 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/groundbreaking-skin-cancer-treatment-given-approval-record-time/ (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. Aviation Safety: Management Improvement Needed in FAA’s Airworthiness Directive Program. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1990.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Pee G-Y. Sonochemical Remediation of Freshwater Sediments Contaminated with Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons. Doctoral dissertation. Ohio State University, 2008.

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]

Pilon M. Quenching the Desire to Run. New York Times 2012:D6.

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