How to format your references using the Neural Development citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Neural Development. 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. Schwab ME. Repairing the injured spinal cord. Science. 2002;295:1029–31.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Boroson TA, Lauer TR. A candidate sub-parsec supermassive binary black hole system. Nature. 2009;458:53–5.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Van Roy P, Daley AC, Briggs DEG. Anomalocaridid trunk limb homology revealed by a giant filter-feeder with paired flaps. Nature. 2015;522:77–80.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Oberdoerffer S, Moita LF, Neems D, Freitas RP, Hacohen N, Rao A. Regulation of CD45 alternative splicing by heterogeneous ribonucleoprotein, hnRNPLL. Science. 2008;321:686–91.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Stevens BA, Roediger E. Breaking Negative Relationship Patterns. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2016.

An edited book

1. Ao S-I, Amouzegar M, Rieger BB, editors. Intelligent Automation and Systems Engineering. New York, NY: Springer; 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Edge D, Blackwell AF. Peripheral Tangible Interaction. In: Bakker S, Hausen D, Selker T, editors. Peripheral Interaction: Challenges and Opportunities for HCI in the Periphery of Attention. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. p. 65–93.

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 Neural Development.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. How Can ‘Cured’ Ebola Patients Fall Sick Again Months After Recovery? [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/how-can-cured-ebola-patients-fall-sick-again-months-after-recovery/

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. Federal Aviation Administration: Agency Is Taking Steps to Plan for and Train Its Technician Workforce, but a More Strategic Approach Is Warranted. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2010 Oct. Report No.: GAO-11-91.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Pan X. Using Structural Information in Modeling and Multiple Alignments for Phylogenetics [Doctoral dissertation]. [Columbus, OH]: Ohio State University; 2008.

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. Koblin J, Grynbaum MM, Maheshwari S. Fox Pitches Sports to Advertisers, but Specter of Its News Scandal Lingers. New York Times. 2017 May 16;B6.

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	Neural Development
Abbreviation	Neural Dev.
ISSN (online)	1749-8104
Scope	Developmental Neuroscience