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. Russo G. Bioscience in the sun. Nature. 2007;446:1112–3.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Blondin JM, Mezzacappa A. Pulsar spins from an instability in the accretion shock of supernovae. Nature. 2007;445:58–60.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Moynier F, Yin Q-Z, Schauble E. Isotopic evidence of Cr partitioning into Earth’s core. Science. 2011;331:1417–20.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Übel C, Graser A, Koch S, Rieker RJ, Lehr HA, Müller M, et al. Role of Tyk-2 in Th9 and Th17 cells in allergic asthma. Sci Rep. 2014;4:5865.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Saksena FB. Color Atlas of Local and Systemic Signs of Cardiovascular Disease. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd; 2008.

An edited book

1. Gaber MM, Cocea M, Wiratunga N, Goker A, editors. Advances in Social Media Analysis. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Bishop W, Grubesic TH. Metadata. In: Grubesic TH, editor. Geographic Information: Organization, Access, and Use. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. p. 79–103.

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. Fang J. Beetles Brandish the Best Weapons for their Fighting Style [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2014 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/beetles-brandish-best-weapons-their-fighting-style/

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. Weather Satellites: Action Needed to Resolve Status of the U.S. Geostationary Satellite Program. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1991 Jul. Report No.: NSIAD-91-252.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Dair C. Development of a nutrition-related curriculum for sustainable food waste management for foodservice operations [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 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

1. Kishkovsky S. Russian Priest Killed in Church. New York Times. 2009 Nov 20;A8.

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