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:

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

Hedges R: Archaeological verification: Puzzling out the past. Nature 2003, 422:667.

A journal article with 2 authors

Hilf RJC, Dutzler R: X-ray structure of a prokaryotic pentameric ligand-gated ion channel. Nature 2008, 452:375–379.

A journal article with 3 authors

Schmidt MW, Vautravers MJ, Spero HJ: Rapid subtropical North Atlantic salinity oscillations across Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles. Nature 2006, 443:561–564.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Jones MWM, Elgass K, Junker MD, Luu MB, Ryan MT, Peele AG, van Riessen GA: Mapping biological composition through quantitative phase and absorption X-ray ptychography. Sci Rep 2014, 4:6796.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Stamp M: Information Security. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2005.

An edited book

Zhang Q: Complexity, Analysis and Control of Singular Biological Systems. Springer; 2012.

A chapter in an edited book

Harwood TM, L’Abate L: Bibliotherapy. In Self-Help in Mental Health: A Critical Review. Edited by L’Abate L. Springer; 2010:59–77.

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

Andrew E: Evidence of Water in Meteorite Reopens Debate on Ancient Martian Life. IFLScience 2014,

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: Information Technology: Implementing Best Practices and Reform Initiatives Can Help Improve the Management of Investments. U.S. Government Printing Office; 2014.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Gatti DM: Genome-wide analysis of transcriptional regulation in the murine liver. 2010,

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

Chavez L: American Dreams, Foreign Flags. New York Times 2006,

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	Current Opinion in Neurobiology
Abbreviation	Curr. Opin. Neurobiol.
ISSN (print)	0959-4388
ISSN (online)	1873-6882
Scope	General Neuroscience

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