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]

Schilling G. Sloan Digital Sky Survey. A hundred million points of light. Nature 2000;407:557.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Brumfiel G, Marris E. Physics wins the US budget race. Nature 2006;439:644–5.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Bloom JD, Gong LI, Baltimore D. Permissive secondary mutations enable the evolution of influenza oseltamivir resistance. Science 2010;328:1272–5.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Wu C, Cheng Y-Y, Yin H, Song X-N, Li W-W, Zhou X-X, et al. Oxygen promotes biofilm formation of Shewanella putrefaciens CN32 through a diguanylate cyclase and an adhesin. Sci Rep 2013;3:1945.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Gasch A, Gasch B. Successfully Choosing Your EMR. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell; 2010.

An edited book

[1]

Gasparri G, Palestini N, Camandona M, editors. Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Hyperparathyroidism: Diagnostic and Therapeutic Updates. Milano: Springer; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Hunter CW, Lee ET, Deer TR. Preoperative Evaluation for Spinal Cord Stimulation. In: Deer TR, Pope JE, editors. Atlas of Implantable Therapies for Pain Management, New York, NY: Springer; 2016, p. 15–21.

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. Could We Grow Crops In Space? IFLScience 2014. https://www.iflscience.com/space/new-project-will-examine-feasibility-growing-crops-iss/ (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. Expenditures for Telephone Services and Adequacy of Controls Over Such Services. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1973.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Goodison SE. The undiscovered country: Homicide, dynamic change, and deterrence in Washington, D.C. Neighborhoods, 1998-2006. Doctoral dissertation. University of Maryland, College Park, 2014.

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]

Chang S. Parents Held In Murder Of Girl, 4, Long Missing. New York Times 2006:B5.

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