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

Fischhoff B. The realities of risk-cost-benefit analysis. Science. 2015 Oct;350(6260):aaa6516.

A journal article with 2 authors

Bernays EA, Singer MS. Insect defences: taste alteration and endoparasites. Nature. 2005 Jul;436(7050):476.

A journal article with 3 authors

Gregory JM, Huybrechts P, Raper SCB. Climatology: threatened loss of the Greenland ice-sheet. Nature. 2004 Apr;428(6983):616.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Papadakis G, Tsortos A, Kordas A, Tiniakou I, Morou E, Vontas J, et al. Acoustic detection of DNA conformation in genetic assays combined with PCR. Sci Rep. 2013;3:2033.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Tripathi N, Singh RS, Hills CD. Reclamation of Mine-Impacted Land for Ecosystem Recovery. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2016.

An edited book

Baxter J. Speaking as Women Leaders: Meetings in Middle Eastern and Western Contexts. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

Kreimeyer M, Lindemann U. Modeling the structure of design processes. In: Lindemann U, editor. Complexity Metrics in Engineering Design: Managing the Structure of Design Processes. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011; pp 101–32.

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

Andrews R. Why Are These Bald Eagles Caring For A Lonely Baby Hawk? [Internet]. IFLScience. 2017 Jun [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/bald-eagles-spotted-caring-lonely-baby-hawk/

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. Information Technology: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Needs to Establish Critical Investment Management Capabilities. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2005.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Huynhle M. High-Fat Diet-Induced Obesity Increases Resilience against Gram-Negative Bacterial Infection in Drosophila Larvae. 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

Murphy MJO. Baseball and Showbiz in 1924. New York Times. 2014 Oct;C27.

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