How to format your references using the Pulse citation style

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

Blackburn EH. Telomere states and cell fates. Nature. 2000 Nov;408(6808):53–6.

A journal article with 2 authors

Jacoby CA, Frazer TK. Eutrophication: time to adjust expectations. Science. 2009 May;324(5928):723–4; author reply 724-5.

A journal article with 3 authors

Cowen RK, Paris CB, Srinivasan A. Scaling of connectivity in marine populations. Science. 2006 Jan;311(5760):522–7.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Shergill SS, Bays PM, Frith CD, Wolpert DM. Two eyes for an eye: the neuroscience of force escalation. Science. 2003 Jul;301(5630):187.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kimball R, Ross M. The Kimball Group Reader. Indianapolis, IN, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc; 2015.

An edited book

Saravacos G. Handbook of Food Processing Equipment. 2nd ed. 2016. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

Dumur CI. Molecular Methodologies. In: Idowu MO, Dumur CI, Garrett CT, editors. Molecular Oncology Testing for Solid Tumors: A Pragmatic Approach. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015; pp 153–70.

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 Pulse.

Blog post

Andrew E. Stem Cells Converted Into Lung Tissue [Internet]. IFLScience. 2013 Dec [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/stem-cells-converted-lung-tissue/

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. Review of the Office of Education’s Basic Educational Opportunity Grant Program. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1976.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Peto J. A defense of Donald Davidson’s dissolution to the problem of global skepticism. 2009

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

Sisario B. Superstar Adjusts to a Streaming World. New York Times. 2017 Sep;B1.

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	Pulse
Abbreviation	Pulse (Basel)
ISSN (print)	2235-8676
ISSN (online)	2235-8668
Scope