How to format your references using the Molecular Autism citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Molecular Autism. 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
1. Lawler A. SOLAR SYSTEM EXPLORATION: A More Cautious NASA Sets Plans for Mars. Science. 2000;290:915a–6a.
A journal article with 2 authors
1. Simpkins PG, Kuck VJ. Air entrapment in coatings by way of a tip-streaming meniscus. Nature. 2000;403:641–3.
A journal article with 3 authors
1. Kaminski J, Call J, Fischer J. Word learning in a domestic dog: evidence for “fast mapping.” Science. 2004;304:1682–3.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
1. Rahmani Y, Koopman R, Denisov D, Schall P. Probing incipient plasticity by indenting colloidal glasses. Sci Rep. 2013;3:1064.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1. Kimberlin L, zur Linden A, Ruoff L. Atlas of Clinical Imaging and Anatomy of the Equine Head. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2016.
An edited book
1. Carter CB, Williams DB, editors. Transmission Electron Microscopy: Diffraction, Imaging, and Spectrometry. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016.
A chapter in an edited book
1. Xiao R, Hu X. The Macro-Statistic Features of Translational Chinese. In: Hu X, editor. Corpus-Based Studies of Translational Chinese in English-Chinese Translation. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2015. p. 67–87.

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 Molecular Autism.

Blog post
1. O`Callaghan J. Help Find Planet Nine And You Could Name It (But You Can’t Pick Planet McPlanetface) [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2017 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/space/help-find-planet-nine-and-you-could-name-it/

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
1. Government Accountability Office. Information Technology: Executive office for U.S. Attorneys Needs to Institutionalize Key IT Management Disciplines. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2003 Jul. Report No.: GAO-03-751.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1. Green JT. The relationship between technology support and extent of technology integration into college-level foreign language curricula [Doctoral dissertation]. [Tampa, FL]: University of South Florida; 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
1. Risen J. An Ex-Detainee, but Still a Captive of ‘The Darkness.’ New York Times. 2016 Oct 12;A1.

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 titleMolecular Autism
AbbreviationMol. Autism
ISSN (online)2040-2392
ScopeDevelopmental Biology
Molecular Biology
Psychiatry and Mental health
Developmental Neuroscience

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