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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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. Danger B. Don’t stop me now. Nature. 2007;445:334–5.
A journal article with 2 authors
1. Yeates TO, Clubb RT. Biochemistry. How some pili pull. Science. 2007;318:1558–9.
A journal article with 3 authors
1. Horváth J, Szalai I, De Kepper P. An experimental design method leading to chemical Turing patterns. Science. 2009;324:772–5.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
1. Sang L, Hu J, Zou R, Koide Y, Liao M. Arbitrary multicolor photodetection by hetero-integrated semiconductor nanostructures. Sci Rep. 2013;3:2368.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1. Ellis H, Lawson A. Anatomy for Anaesthetists. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons Ltd; 2013.
An edited book
1. Nicola RD, editor. Programming Languages and Systems: 16th European Symposium on Programming, ESOP 2007, Held as Part of the Joint European Conferences on Theory and Practics of Software, ETAPS 2007, Braga, Portugal, March 24 - April 1, 2007. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2007.
A chapter in an edited book
1. van der Aalst WMP. Decomposing Process Mining Problems Using Passages. In: Haddad S, Pomello L, editors. Application and Theory of Petri Nets: 33rd International Conference, PETRI NETS 2012, Hamburg, Germany, June 25-29, 2012 Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2012. p. 72–91.

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. The Up Side Of Feeling Down: New Theory Links Neurotic Thinking To Creativity. 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. Manufacturing Extension Partnership: Most Federal Spending Directly Supports Work with Manufacturers, but Distribution Could Be Improved. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2014 Mar. Report No.: GAO-14-317.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1. Rodriguez G. Undocumented students in higher education: A grant project [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2013.

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. Rojas R, Remnick N, Palmer E. Prosecutor Adds First-Degree Murder Charge in Killing of Imam and Aide. New York Times. 2016 Aug 17;A17.

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 titleNeural Development
AbbreviationNeural Dev.
ISSN (online)1749-8104
ScopeDevelopmental Neuroscience

Other styles