How to format your references using the Neuroscience citation style

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

Smaglik P (2004) Capping active volcanoes. Nature 428:347.

A journal article with 2 authors

Palmer MA, Filoso S (2009) Restoration of ecosystem services for environmental markets. Science 325:575–576.

A journal article with 3 authors

Serabyn E, Mawet D, Burruss R (2010) An image of an exoplanet separated by two diffraction beamwidths from a star. Nature 464:1018–1020.

A journal article with 20 or more authors

Muhar M et al. (2018) SLAM-seq defines direct gene-regulatory functions of the BRD4-MYC axis. Science 360:800–805.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Sharpe NF, Carter RF (2005) Genetic Testing. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Ganzha M, Jain LC eds. (2013) Multiagent Systems and Applications: Volume 1:Practice and Experience. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Ndlovu E (2016) The Positioning of Citizen-Influenced Radio in the Battle for the Control of Minds. In: Participatory Politics and Citizen Journalism in a Networked Africa: A Connected Continent (Mutsvairo B, ed), pp 59–76. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.

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 Neuroscience.

Blog post

Taub B (2016) Test Can Calculate A Person’s Chances Of Waking From A Coma. IFLScience.

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 (1982) Department of Education Uncertain About Effectiveness of Its Special Services Program. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Poland MC (2010) New cluster-based routing and multi-channel MAC protocols for vehicular ad hoc networks.

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

Kelly M (1992) Perot Under Fire: Sifting Facts and Motives. New York Times:A1.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Smaglik, 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Smaglik, 2004; Palmer and Filoso, 2009).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Palmer and Filoso, 2009)
Three or more authors: (Muhar et al., 2018)

About the journal

Full journal title	Neuroscience
Abbreviation	Neuroscience
ISSN (print)	0306-4522
ISSN (online)	1873-7544
Scope	General Neuroscience