How to format your references using the Children citation style

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

Coleman, P. Physics. The Lowdown on Heavy Fermions. Science 2010, 327, 969–970.

A journal article with 2 authors

Jennings, M.D.; Pavitt, G.D. EIF5 Has GDI Activity Necessary for Translational Control by EIF2 Phosphorylation. Nature 2010, 465, 378–381.

A journal article with 3 authors

Lutz, W.; O’Neill, B.C.; Scherbov, S. Demographics. Europe’s Population at a Turning Point. Science 2003, 299, 1991–1992.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Atwal, J.K.; Pinkston-Gosse, J.; Syken, J.; Stawicki, S.; Wu, Y.; Shatz, C.; Tessier-Lavigne, M. PirB Is a Functional Receptor for Myelin Inhibitors of Axonal Regeneration. Science 2008, 322, 967–970.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Evans, G.M.; Furlong, J.C. Environmental Biotechnology; John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Chichester, UK, 2010; ISBN 9780470975152.

An edited book

Maz’ya, V. Sharp Real-Part Theorems: A Unified Approach; Kresin, G., Ed.; Lecture Notes in Mathematics; Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2007; Vol. 1903; ISBN 9783540695738.

A chapter in an edited book

Bambi, C.; Dolgov, A.D. Kinetics and Thermodynamics in Cosmology. In Introduction to Particle Cosmology: The Standard Model of Cosmology and its Open Problems; Dolgov, A.D., Ed.; UNITEXT for Physics; Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2016; pp. 71–92 ISBN 9783662480779.

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 Children.

Blog post

Andrew, E. Earth and Moon Are 60 Million Years Older Than Previously Believed Available online: https://www.iflscience.com/space/earth-and-moon-are-60-million-years-older-previously-believed/ (accessed on 30 October 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

Government Accountability Office Federal Motor Vehicles: Private and State Practices Can Improve Fleet Management; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1994;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Jenrich, M.A. “To Treat Her as a Woman”: African American Women and Respectability in New York, 1860-1890. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach: Long Beach, CA, 2017.

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

Verghese, A. Baby Steps. New York Times 2017, BR16.

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	Children
Abbreviation	Children (Basel)
ISSN (online)	2227-9067
Scope