How to format your references using the Frontiers in Brain Imaging Methods citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Frontiers in Brain Imaging Methods. 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
Powell, K. (2004). Age is no barrier. Nature 432, 40–42.
A journal article with 2 authors
Schindler, D. E., and Hilborn, R. (2015). Sustainability. Prediction, precaution, and policy under global change. Science 347, 953–954.
A journal article with 3 authors
Cannistraci, C. V., Alanis-Lobato, G., and Ravasi, T. (2013). From link-prediction in brain connectomes and protein interactomes to the local-community-paradigm in complex networks. Sci. Rep. 3, 1613.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
Kim, J., Shin, J.-Y., Kim, J.-I., Seo, J.-S., Webster, M. J., Lee, D., et al. (2014). Somatic deletions implicated in functional diversity of brain cells of individuals with schizophrenia and unaffected controls. Sci. Rep. 4, 3807.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Recho, N. (2012). Fracture Mechanics and Crack Growth. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
Erturk, S. M. (2016). Teaching Atlas of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Imaging: A Collection of Clinical Cases., ed. T. Ichikawa. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
A chapter in an edited book
Singh, N. K., and Patel, D. B. (2012). “Microalgae for Bioremediation of Distillery Effluent,” in Farming for Food and Water Security, ed. E. Lichtfouse (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands), 83–109.

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 Frontiers in Brain Imaging Methods.

Blog post
Luntz, S. (2014). Our Solar System Is Surrounded by Supernovae Debris. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/space/surrounded-supernovae-debris-edited-kh/ (Accessed October 30, 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 (1991). Reports and Testimony: August 1991. Washington, DC: 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
Verret, J. E. (2019). Property Tax Limitations, School District Revenues, and Equity: Analyses of Pennsylvania’s Act One. Washington, DC: George Washington University.

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
Kelly, C. (2007). Crime Lab Gets a Shot in the Arm. New York Times, 14WE7.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Powell, 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Powell, 2004; Schindler and Hilborn, 2015).

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

  • Two authors: (Schindler and Hilborn, 2015)
  • Three or more authors: (Kim et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal titleFrontiers in Brain Imaging Methods
AbbreviationFront. Neurosci.
ISSN (online)1662-453X
ScopeGeneral Neuroscience

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