How to format your references using the Nature Neuroscience citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Nature 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	Download the output style file
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

Kerp, H. Atmospheric CO2 from fossil plant cuticles. Nature 415, 38 (2002).

A journal article with 2 authors

Philpotts, A. R. & Dickson, L. D. The formation of plagioclase chains during convective transfer in basaltic magma. Nature 406, 59–61 (2000).

A journal article with 3 authors

Udem, T., Holzwarth, R. & Hänsch, T. W. Optical frequency metrology. Nature 416, 233–237 (2002).

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Yao, Q. et al. Assembly of nanoions via electrostatic interactions: ion-like behavior of charged noble metal nanoclusters. Sci. Rep. 4, 3848 (2014).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Armaroli, N., Balzani, V. & Serpone, N. Powering Planet Earth. (Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany, 2013).

An edited book

Bread and Roses: Voices of Australian Academics from the Working Class. (SensePublishers, Rotterdam, 2015).

A chapter in an edited book

Benirschke, K., Burton, G. J. & Baergen, R. N. Early Development of the Human Placenta. in Pathology of the Human Placenta (eds. Burton, G. J. & Baergen, R. N.) 41–53 (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2012).

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 Nature Neuroscience.

Blog post

Luntz, S. Humans Are Changing The Planet Hundreds Of Times Faster Than Natural Forces. IFLScience https://www.iflscience.com/environment/humans-are-changing-the-planet-hundreds-of-times-faster-than-natural-forces/ (2017).

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. Goals 2000: Flexible Funding Supports State and Local Education Reform. (1998).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Flamenco, E. A financial abuse prevention program for older adults: A grant proposal. (California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, 2015).

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

Novick, S. M. Flavorful Encores From Jean-Georges. New York Times LI5 (2016).

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

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	Nature Neuroscience
Abbreviation	Nat. Neurosci.
ISSN (print)	1097-6256
ISSN (online)	1546-1726
Scope	General Neuroscience