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

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

Kielpinski, D. (2015). Quantum physics: Quantum sound waves stick together. Nature, 527(7576), 45–46.

A journal article with 2 authors

Lee, A. L., & Wand, A. J. (2001). Microscopic origins of entropy, heat capacity and the glass transition in proteins. Nature, 411(6836), 501–504.

A journal article with 3 authors

Vajda, V., Raine, J. I., & Hollis, C. J. (2001). Indication of global deforestation at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary by New Zealand fern spike. Science (New York, N.Y.), 294(5547), 1700–1702.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Lang, K. M., Madhavan, V., Hoffman, J. E., Hudson, E. W., Eisaki, H., Uchida, S., & Davis, J. C. (2002). Imaging the granular structure of high-Tc superconductivity in underdoped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta. Nature, 415(6870), 412–416.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hossler, F. E. (2014). Ultrastructure Atlas of Human Tissues. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Advani, A. S., & Lazarus, H. M. (Eds.). (2011). Adult Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia: Biology and Treatment. Humana Press.

A chapter in an edited book

Borin, J. F., & McDougall, E. M. (2006). Ureteral Stent for Ureteral Stricture. In S. Baba & Y. Ono (Eds.), Interventional Management of Urological Diseases (pp. 75–86). Springer Japan.

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 Language.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2015, January 8). Twisted Light Beams Are Coming – And They Will Boost Your Internet Speed. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/twisted-light-beams-are-coming-and-they-will-boost-your-internet-speed/

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. (2003). Freight Transportation: Strategies Needed to Address Planning and Financing Limitations (GAO-04-165). 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

Tse, J. (2009). An explication of the Hilbert basis theorem and its relation to school mathematics [Doctoral dissertation]. California State University, Long Beach.

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

Vecsey, G. (2010, September 5). Bustling Booth Becomes Waypoint In Ashe’s Legacy. New York Times, SP7.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Kielpinski, 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Kielpinski, 2015; Lee & Wand, 2001).

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

Two authors: (Lee & Wand, 2001)
Three authors: (Vajda et al., 2001)
6 or more authors: (Lang et al., 2002)

About the journal

Full journal title	Brain and Language
Abbreviation	Brain Lang.
ISSN (print)	0093-934X
Scope	Language and Linguistics Cognitive Neuroscience Experimental and Cognitive Psychology Linguistics and Language Speech and Hearing