How to format your references using the Current Opinion in Neurobiology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Current Opinion in Neurobiology. 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.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
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.
McCabe H: Galileo set for suicide flight. Nature 2000, 406:8.
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
Deckert R, Dameris M: Atmospheric science. From ocean to stratosphere. Science 2008, 322:53–55.
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
Caron J-B, Morris SC, Cameron CB: Tubicolous enteropneusts from the Cambrian period. Nature 2013, 495:503–506.
A journal article with 11 or more authors
1.
Sakurai Y, Itou M, Barbiellini B, Mijnarends PE, Markiewicz RS, Kaprzyk S, Gillet J-M, Wakimoto S, Fujita M, Basak S, et al.: Imaging doped holes in a cuprate superconductor with high-resolution Compton scattering. Science 2011, 332:698–702.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
Smith EM: Advances in Thermal Design of Heat Exchangers. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2006.
An edited book
1.
Hirsch EA, Karhumäki J, Lepistö A, Prilutskii M (Eds): Computer Science – Theory and Applications: 7th International Computer Science Symposium in Russia, CSR 2012, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, July 3-7, 2012. Proceedings. Springer; 2012.
A chapter in an edited book
1.
Otto C, Holz M, Barth G: Production of Organic Acids by Yarrowia lipolytica. In Yarrowia lipolytica: Biotechnological Applications. Edited by Barth G. Springer; 2013:137–149.

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 Opinion in Neurobiology.

Blog post
1.
Fang J: Were Beethoven’s Masterpieces Influenced by a Cardiac Arrhythmia? IFLScience 2015,

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: Competitiveness of Federal Computer Procurements. 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.
Brookman D: Establishing context for referents in online chatroom conversations. 2009,

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.
Dougherty C: Inside Yelp’s Fierce Google Grudge. New York Times 2017,

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 Opinion in Neurobiology
AbbreviationCurr. Opin. Neurobiol.
ISSN (print)0959-4388
ISSN (online)1873-6882
ScopeGeneral Neuroscience

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