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

Baker M (2010) RNA interference: MicroRNAs as biomarkers. Nature 464:1227.

A journal article with 2 authors

Melnik DG, Miller TA (2008) Chemistry. The changing shapes of molecules. Science 320:881–882.

A journal article with 3 authors

Imaizumi K, Shih JY, Farris HE (2013) Global hyper-synchronous spontaneous activity in the developing optic tectum. Sci Rep 3:1552.

A journal article with 20 or more authors

Minniti D, Borissova J, Rejkuba M, Alves DR, Cook KH, Freeman KC (2003) Kinematic evidence for an old stellar halo in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Science 301:1508–1510.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Goodhew S (2016) Sustainable Construction Processes. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Laming MM ed. (2012) The New Inheritors: Transforming Young People’s Expectations of University. Rotterdam: SensePublishers.

A chapter in an edited book

Kearney A (2011) Why are Disabled Students Excluded from and Within School? In: Exclusion from and Within School: Issues and Solutions (Kearney A, ed), pp 93–103. Rotterdam: SensePublishers.

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

Hale T (2016) Spider Carries A Mouse Up A Refrigerator Like It’s No Big Deal. IFLScience Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/spider-carries-a-mouse-up-a-refrigerator-like-its-no-big-deal/ [Accessed October 30, 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 (1998) Year 2000 Computing Crisis: Leadership Needed to Collect and Disseminate Critical Biomedical Equipment Information. 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

Brady DC (2008) The transforming Rho family GTPase, Wrch -1, regulates epithelial cell morphogenesis through modulating cell junctions and actin cytoskeletal dynamics.

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

Feeney K (2009) A Tea ‘Room,’ on 2 Floors. New York Times:NJ12.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Baker, 2010).
This sentence cites two references (Melnik and Miller, 2008; Baker, 2010).

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

Two authors: (Melnik and Miller, 2008)
Three or more authors: (Minniti et al., 2003)

About the journal

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