How to format your references using the Frontiers in Synaptic Neuroscience citation style

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

Seeliger, J. C. (2012). Scientists must be taught to manage. Nature 483, 511.

A journal article with 2 authors

Long, P., and Corfas, G. (2014). Neuroscience. To learn is to myelinate. Science 346, 298–299.

A journal article with 3 authors

Cox, D., Meyers, E., and Sinha, P. (2004). Contextually evoked object-specific responses in human visual cortex. Science 304, 115–117.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Ayoub, N., Jeyasekharan, A. D., Bernal, J. A., and Venkitaraman, A. R. (2008). HP1-beta mobilization promotes chromatin changes that initiate the DNA damage response. Nature 453, 682–686.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Subramanian, M. N. (2017). Polymer Blends and Composites. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Cucchiella, F., and Koh, L. eds. (2015). Sustainable Future Energy Technology and Supply Chains: A Multi-perspective Analysis. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Zhiyanski, M., Gikov, A., Nedkov, S., Dimitrov, P., and Naydenova, L. (2016). “Mapping Carbon Storage Using Land Cover/Land Use Data in the Area of Beklemeto, Central Balkan,” in Sustainable Mountain Regions: Challenges and Perspectives in Southeastern Europe, eds. B. Koulov and G. Zhelezov (Cham: Springer International Publishing), 53–65.

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 Synaptic Neuroscience.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2015). Of Cats And Cliffs: The Ethical Dilemmas Of The Driverless Car. IFLScience.

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 (1972). Opportunity To Improve Indian Education in Schools Operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. 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

Kim, S. (2004). Characterization of Ribosomal S6 Protein Phosphorylation and Posssible Control of Ribosome Biogenesis in Arabidopsis Cell Culture. Columbus, OH: Ohio State 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

Saslow, L. (2007). Few Voters Show Up to Elect Two Democrats. New York Times, 14LI2.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Seeliger, 2012).
This sentence cites two references (Seeliger, 2012; Long and Corfas, 2014).

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

Two authors: (Long and Corfas, 2014)
Three or more authors: (Ayoub et al., 2008)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Synaptic Neuroscience
Abbreviation	Front. Synaptic Neurosci.
ISSN (online)	1663-3563
Scope	Cell Biology Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience