How to format your references using the Frontiers in Neural Circuits citation style

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

Segal, H. P. (2001). Back to the future from 1888. Nature 409, 563.

A journal article with 2 authors

Whitesides, G. M., and Deutch, J. (2011). Let’s get practical. Nature 469, 21–22.

A journal article with 3 authors

Schuck, C., Pernice, W. H. P., and Tang, H. X. (2013). Waveguide integrated low noise NbTiN nanowire single-photon detectors with milli-Hz dark count rate. Sci. Rep. 3, 1893.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Chai, Q., Arndt, J. W., Dong, M., Tepp, W. H., Johnson, E. A., Chapman, E. R., et al. (2006). Structural basis of cell surface receptor recognition by botulinum neurotoxin B. Nature 444, 1096–1100.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Speight, J. G., and Singh, K. (2014). Environmental Management of Energy from Biofuels and Biofeedstocks. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Nin, J., and Villatoro, D. eds. (2013). Citizen in Sensor Networks: First International Workshop, CitiSens 2012, Montpellier, France, August 27, 2012, Revised Selected Papers. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Bakhtadze, N. N., and Lototsky, V. A. (2016). “Knowledge-Based Models of Nonlinear Systems Based on Inductive Learning,” in New Frontiers in Information and Production Systems Modelling and Analysis: Incentive Mechanisms, Competence Management, Knowledge-based Production, eds. P. Różewski, D. Novikov, N. Bakhtadze, and O. Zaikin (Cham: Springer International Publishing), 85–104.

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 Neural Circuits.

Blog post

Davis, J. (2015). Endangered Sawfish Have Virgin Births. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/endangered-sawfish-have-virgin-births/ (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 (1987). Aviation Safety: Needed Improvements in FAA’s Airline Inspection Program Are Underway. 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

Survis, F. D. (2010). Residential lawn water use and lawn irrigation practices: Wellington, Florida. Boca Raton, FL: Florida Atlantic 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

Koblin, J. (2017). E!, a Mainstay on the Red Carpet, Buys the People’s Choice Awards. New York Times, B4.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Segal, 2001).
This sentence cites two references (Segal, 2001; Whitesides and Deutch, 2011).

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

Two authors: (Whitesides and Deutch, 2011)
Three or more authors: (Chai et al., 2006)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Neural Circuits
Abbreviation	Front. Neural Circuits
ISSN (online)	1662-5110
Scope	Neuroscience (miscellaneous) Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience Cognitive Neuroscience Sensory Systems