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. Møller BL. Plant science. Dynamic metabolons. Science. 2010;330:1328–9.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Wang ZX, Schleyer PR. Construction principles of “hyparenes”: families of molecules with planar pentacoordinate carbons. Science. 2001;292:2465–9.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Zhurov V, Terzin T, Grbić M. Early blastomere determines embryo proliferation and caste fate in a polyembryonic wasp. Nature. 2004;432:764–9.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Cobb KM, Charles CD, Cheng H, Edwards RL. El Niño/Southern Oscillation and tropical Pacific climate during the last millennium. Nature. 2003;424:271–6.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Harrison A. The Life of D. H. Lawrence. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2016.

An edited book

1. Wang J, Ding Z, Zou L, Zuo J, editors. Proceedings of the 17th International Symposium on Advancement of Construction Management and Real Estate. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Bodner G. Nerve Compression Syndromes. In: Peer S, Bodner G, editors. High-Resolution Sonography of the Peripheral Nervous System. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2008. p. 71–122.

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. Andrew E. Flexible Electronic Skin Allows Humans To “Sense” Magnetic Fields. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015.

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. Special Education: Congressional Action Needed to Improve Chapter 1 Handicapped Program. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1989 May. Report No.: HRD-89-54.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Karch K. An investigation of perceptions about smart mobile phone usage as an instructional tool in a high school classroom [Doctoral dissertation]. [Minneapolis, MN]: Capella University; 2014.

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. Vecsey G. Summoning Another Storm. New York Times. 2011 Sep 12;D8.

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

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