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

Buratowski S. Gene expression: transcription initiation unwrapped. Nature 2012; 483 (7389): 286–287.

A journal article with 2 authors

Loayza D, De Lange T. POT1 as a terminal transducer of TRF1 telomere length control. Nature 2003; 423 (6943): 1013–1018.

A journal article with 3 authors

Hunt N, McGrath D, Stergiou N. The influence of auditory-motor coupling on fractal dynamics in human gait. Sci. Rep. 2014; 4: 5879.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Du X, Wen J, Wang Y, Karmaus PWF, Khatamian A, Tan H, et al. Hippo/Mst signalling couples metabolic state and immune function of CD8α+ dendritic cells. Nature 2018; 558 (7708): 141–145.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Baker WL, Marn MV, Zawada CC. The Price Advantage. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2010.

An edited book

Science in the Age of Baroque. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

Rozanov VV, Kokhanovsky AA. Impact of single- and multi-layered cloudiness on ozone vertical column retrievals using nadir observations of backscattered solar radiation. In: Kokhanovsky AA (ed). Light Scattering Reviews 3: Light Scattering and Reflection. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2008. pp. 133–189.

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

Fang J. Immunizing Frogs Against a Killer Fungus. IFLScience 2014;

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. Global Positioning System: Production Should Be Limited Until Receiver Reliability Problems Are Resolved. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1991.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Gunderson CA. The Moderating Effect of Type of Target on the Relationship between Collective Rumination and Displaced Aggression. 2017;

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

Kolomatsky M. May’s Most Popular Properties. New York Times 2017; RE2.

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