How to format your references using the Neural Processing Letters citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Neural Processing Letters. 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

Alward WLM (2003) Biomedicine. A new angle on ocular development. Science 299:1527–1528

A journal article with 2 authors

Imondi R, Thomas JB (2003) Neuroscience. The ups and downs of Wnt signaling. Science 302:1903–1904

A journal article with 3 authors

Kourtis N, Nikoletopoulou V, Tavernarakis N (2012) Small heat-shock proteins protect from heat-stroke-associated neurodegeneration. Nature 490:213–218

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Mineur YS, Abizaid A, Rao Y, et al (2011) Nicotine decreases food intake through activation of POMC neurons. Science 332:1330–1332

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Waigh TA (2014) The Physics of Living Processes. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK

An edited book

Asche C (2016) Applying Comparative Effectiveness Data to Medical Decision Making: A Practical Guide. Springer International Publishing, Cham

A chapter in an edited book

Zepp C (2016) Coping with Stress During a Marathon. In: Zinner C, Sperlich B (eds) Marathon Running: Physiology, Psychology, Nutrition and Training Aspects. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 83–105

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 Processing Letters.

Blog post

Carpineti A (2016) Northern Lights Spectacle Expected During Solar Storm. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/northern-lights-spectacle-expected-during-solar-storm/. Accessed 30 Oct 2018

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 (2017) Pipeline Safety: Additional Actions Could Improve Federal Use of Data on Pipeline Materials and Corrosion. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Stockman SB (2015) Daughters of Yahweh: Recovering the deep feminine from the Yahweh complex. Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute

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

Crow K (2001) As Plans for Marsh Dry Up, Park’s Neighbors Complain. New York Times 145

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 Processing Letters
Abbreviation	Neural Process. Lett.
ISSN (print)	1370-4621
ISSN (online)	1573-773X
Scope	Artificial Intelligence Computer Networks and Communications Software General Neuroscience

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