How to format your references using the Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports. 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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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. Chang J. Core services: Reward bioinformaticians. Nature. 2015;520:151–2.
A journal article with 2 authors
1. Gowers T, Nielsen M. Massively collaborative mathematics. Nature. 2009;461:879–81.
A journal article with 3 authors
1. Briggman KL, Helmstaedter M, Denk W. Wiring specificity in the direction-selectivity circuit of the retina. Nature. 2011;471:183–8.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
1. Filella I, Primante C, Llusià J, Martín González AM, Seco R, Farré-Armengol G, et al. Floral advertisement scent in a changing plant-pollinators market. Sci Rep. 2013;3:3434.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1. Bobrow J, Kohn E, Mondragon-Gilmore J, Eggenschwiler J. CliffsNotes® Praxis I®: PPST®. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing, Inc.; 2009.
An edited book
1. Radev D, editor. Puzzles in Logic, Languages and Computation: The Red Book. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013.
A chapter in an edited book
1. Kannengiesser T, Gründer K-P. Stress and Strain Determination. In: Czichos H, editor. Handbook of Technical Diagnostics: Fundamentals and Application to Structures and Systems. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013. p. 69–108.

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 Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports.

Blog post
1. Luntz S. Typhoon Seen From Space [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/typhoon-maysak-space/

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. D.C. Charter Schools: Strengthening Monitoring and Process When Schools Close Could Improve Accountability and Ease Student Transitions. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2005 Nov. Report No.: GAO-06-73.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1. Sutton DL. Alumni perceptions of the role of field education in professional preparation [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2015.

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. Kelly K. Children’s Books. New York Times. 1999 Sep 12;737.

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 titleCurrent Behavioral Neuroscience Reports
AbbreviationCurr. Behav. Neurosci. Rep.
ISSN (online)2196-2979
Scope

Other styles