How to format your references using the Sexual Development citation style

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

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
Stillman JH: Acclimation capacity underlies susceptibility to climate change. Science 301:65 (2003).
A journal article with 2 authors
Kalcheim C, Rohrer H: Neuroscience. Following the same nerve track toward different cell fates. Science 345:32–33 (2014).
A journal article with 3 authors
Motose H, Sugiyama M, Fukuda H: A proteoglycan mediates inductive interaction during plant vascular development. Nature 429:873–878 (2004).
A journal article with 7 or more authors
Pai DZ, Ken Ostrikov K, Kumar S, Lacoste DA, Levchenko I, Laux CO: Energy efficiency in nanoscale synthesis using nanosecond plasmas. Sci Rep 3:1221 (2013).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Blicq RS, Moretto LA: Writing Reports to Get Results. (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, USA 2015).
An edited book
Du D-Z, Pardalos PM, editors: Handbook of Combinatorial Optimization: Supplement Volume B. (Springer US, Boston, MA 2005).
A chapter in an edited book
Treece G, Lindop J, Gee A, Prager R: Near-Real-Time 3D Ultrasonic Strain Imaging, in Akiyama I (ed): Acoustical Imaging (Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht 2009), pp 27–32.

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 Sexual Development.

Blog post
Taub B: Manta Rays Are Not Long-Distance Migrators, Study Reveals [Internet]. IFLScience [cited 2018 Oct 30]; (2016). Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/manta-rays-not-long-distance-migrators-study-reveals/

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: Highway Public-Private Partnerships: Securing Potential Benefits and Protecting the Public Interest Could Result from More Rigorous Up-front Analysis. (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 2008).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
Andrews M: Health literacy competencies for health professionals: A Delphi study (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
Shpigel B: Three Goals Early in Third Period Help Penguins Tighten Their Grip. New York Times :B15 (2017).

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text

About the journal

Full journal titleSexual Development
AbbreviationSex Dev.
ISSN (print)1661-5425
ISSN (online)1661-5433
ScopeDevelopmental Biology
Embryology
Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism

Other styles