How to format your references using the Molecular Brain citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Molecular Brain. 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

1. Hovnanian JS. Let Armenia show why it’s the place for Sesame. Nature. 2000;405:508.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Pitaevskii L, Stringari S. Ultracold matter. The quest for superfluidity in Fermi gases. Science. 2002;298:2144–6.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Anderson PW, Brinkman WF, Huse DA. Thermodynamics of an incommensurate quantum crystal. Science. 2005;310:1164–6.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Paukner A, Suomi SJ, Visalberghi E, Ferrari PF. Capuchin monkeys display affiliation toward humans who imitate them. Science. 2009;325:880–3.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Rieth M. Pharmazeutische Mikrobiologie. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2012.

An edited book

1. Manickavasagan A, Jayasuriya H, editors. Imaging with Electromagnetic Spectrum: Applications in Food and Agriculture. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Ammari H, Kang H. Generalized Isotropic and Anisotropic Polarization Tensors. In: Kang H, editor. Polarization and Moment Tensors: With Applications to Inverse Problems and Effective Medium Theory. New York, NY: Springer; 2007. p. 75–127.

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 Brain.

Blog post

1. Luntz S. Greenland Largely Melted 400,000 Years Ago [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2014 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/greenland-largely-melted-400000-years-ago/

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. Civil Agency Aircraft: Agencies’ Use of Certain Aircraft to Transport Passengers. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1988 Aug. Report No.: GGD-88-92BR.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Estep KL. Outreach Communication by Grassroots Environmental Organizations: A Case Study [Doctoral dissertation]. [Boca Raton, FL]: Florida Atlantic University; 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. Pilon M. No Nike Deal for Vaulter After He Puts Tape on Logo. New York Times. 2013 Aug 17;D3.

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 title	Molecular Brain
Abbreviation	Mol. Brain
ISSN (online)	1756-6606
Scope	Molecular Biology Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience