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

Macilwain, C. (2000). US energy agency pulls plug on role in genome project. Nature 404, 4.

A journal article with 2 authors

Chen, D., and Savidge, T. (2015). BIOPHYSICS. Comment on “Extreme electric fields power catalysis in the active site of ketosteroid isomerase.” Science 349, 936.

A journal article with 3 authors

Reik, W., Dean, W., and Walter, J. (2001). Epigenetic reprogramming in mammalian development. Science 293, 1089–1093.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Johnson, H. P., Hutnak, M., Dziak, R. P., Fox, C. G., Urcuyo, I., I., Cowen, J. P., et al. (2000). Earthquake-induced changes in a hydrothermal system on the Juan de Fuca mid-ocean ridge. Nature 407, 174–177.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Smith, C. L. (2012). Distillation Control. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Taniar, D., Gervasi, O., Murgante, B., Pardede, E., and Apduhan, B. O. eds. (2010). Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2010: International Conference, Fukuoka, Japan, March 23-26, 2010, Proceedings, Part I. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Althaus, A. L., and Parent, J. M. (2014). “Role of Adult Neurogenesis in Seizure-Induced Hippocampal Remodeling and Epilepsy,” in Endogenous Stem Cell-Based Brain Remodeling in Mammals Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine., eds. M.-P. Junier and S. G. Kernie (Boston, MA: Springer US), 87–104.

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 Synaptic Neuroscience.

Blog post

Andrew, D. (2017). What’s The Point Of Sex? It’s Good For Your Physical, Social And Mental Health. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/whats-the-point-of-sex-its-good-for-your-physical-social-and-mental-health/ [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 (2006). Transportation Security Administration’s Office of Intelligence: Responses to Posthearing Questions Regarding Secure Flight. 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

Danso Odei, P. K. (2017). Effective Resolution of The Bibiani-Anhwianso-Bekwai District Healthcare Delivery System: An Outcome-Based Evaluative Case.

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

Brantley, B. (2016). Diverting, but No Need to Stop the Presses. New York Times, C1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Macilwain, 2000).
This sentence cites two references (Macilwain, 2000; Chen and Savidge, 2015).

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

Two authors: (Chen and Savidge, 2015)
Three or more authors: (Johnson et al., 2000)

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

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