How to format your references using the NeuroReport citation style

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

Keller R. Shaping the vertebrate body plan by polarized embryonic cell movements. Science 2002; 298 (5600): 1950–1954.

A journal article with 2 authors

O’Brien TG, Kinnaird MF. Conservation. Caffeine and conservation. Science 2003; 300 (5619): 587.

A journal article with 3 authors

Thomas JA, Simcox DJ, Clarke RT. Successful conservation of a threatened Maculinea butterfly. Science 2009; 325 (5936): 80–83.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Kim W, Zhu W, Hendricks GL, Van Tyne D, Steele AD, Keohane CE, et al. A new class of synthetic retinoid antibiotics effective against bacterial persisters. Nature 2018; 556 (7699): 103–107.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Laursen GHN, Thorlund J. Business Analytics for Managers. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2016.

An edited book

Hvam L. Product Customization. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2008.

A chapter in an edited book

Delgado A, Jensen RM, Schulte C. Generating Optimal Stowage Plans for Container Vessel Bays. In: Gent IP (ed). Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming - CP 2009: 15th International Conference, CP 2009 Lisbon, Portugal, September 20-24, 2009 Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009. pp. 6–20.

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 NeuroReport.

Blog post

Carpineti A. Can Geoengineering Save The Coral Reefs? IFLScience 2016;

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. Approaches to Mitigate Freight Congestion. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2008.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Pikiewicz KA. I never knew I had expectations until I realized they weren’t going to come true: A grounded theory study of mothering a chronically ill child. 2012;

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

Dynarski S. The Dangers of a Student Data Clampdown. New York Times 2015; BU6.

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	NeuroReport
Abbreviation	Neuroreport
ISSN (print)	0959-4965
ISSN (online)	1473-558X
Scope	General Neuroscience