How to format your references using the Placenta citation style

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

[1]

R. Weissleder, Molecular imaging in cancer, Science 312 (2006) 1168–1171.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

M. Doebeli, U. Dieckmann, Speciation along environmental gradients, Nature 421 (2003) 259–264.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

V. Narayan, S. Ramaswamy, N. Menon, Long-lived giant number fluctuations in a swarming granular nematic, Science 317 (2007) 105–108.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

K. Makise, K. Mitsuishi, M. Shimojo, B. Shinozaki, Microstructural analysis and transport properties of MoO and MoC nanostructures prepared by focused electron beam-induced deposition, Sci. Rep. 4 (2014) 5740.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

F. Callard, N. Sartorius, J. Arboleda-Flórez, P. Bartlett, H. Helmchen, H. Stuart, J. Taborda, G. Thornicroft, Mental Illness, Discrimination and the Law, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2012.

An edited book

[1]

O.N. Tripathi, U. Ravens, M.C. Sanguinetti, eds., Heart Rate and Rhythm: Molecular Basis, Pharmacological Modulation and Clinical Implications, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

L.O. Björn, Light as a Tool for Biologists: Recent Developments, in: L.O. Björn (Ed.), Photobiology: The Science of Life and Light, Springer, New York, NY, 2008: pp. 93–122.

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 Placenta.

Blog post

[1]

E. Andrew, Rare “Sea Serpent” Washes Up Dead On California Beach, IFLScience (2015).

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

[1]

Government Accountability Office, NASA: Assessments of Selected Large-Scale Projects [Reissued on March 26, 2015], U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2015.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

S.J. Yang, Adapting Korean Cinderella Folklore as Fairy Tales for Children, Doctoral dissertation, University of Louisiana, 2014.

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

[1]

J. Schwartz, Picking a Portfolio With Pokéballs, New York Times (2016) BU19.

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	Placenta
Abbreviation	Placenta
ISSN (print)	0143-4004
Scope	Developmental Biology Obstetrics and Gynaecology Reproductive Medicine