How to format your references using the Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (SCAN). 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

Thompson, J.N. (2006). Ecology. Mutualistic webs of species. Science (New York, N.Y.), 312, 372–73

A journal article with 2 authors

Wuchty, S., Uetz, P. (2014). Protein-protein Interaction Networks of E. coli and S. cerevisiae are similar. Scientific reports, 4, 7187

A journal article with 3 authors

Christodoulides, D.N., Lederer, F., Silberberg, Y. (2003). Discretizing light behaviour in linear and nonlinear waveguide lattices. Nature, 424, 817–23

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Miller, S.E., Collins, B.M., McCoy, A.J., et al. (2007). A SNARE-adaptor interaction is a new mode of cargo recognition in clathrin-coated vesicles. Nature, 450, 570–74

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Turner, J.R., Durham, T.A. (2008). Integrated Cardiac Safety: Assessment Methodologies for Noncardiac Drugs in Discovery, Development, and Postmarketing Surveillance. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Park, J.-W., Kim, T.-G., Kim, Y.-B. eds. (2007). AsiaSim 2007: Asia Simulation Conference 2007, Seoul, Korea, October 10-12, 2007. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Norman, R., Le Marshall, J., Zhang, K., et al. (2014). Simulating GPS Radio Occultation Using 3-D Ray Tracing. In: C. Rizos, P. Willis (eds). Earth on the Edge: Science for a Sustainable Planet: Proceedings of the IAG General Assembly, Melbourne, Australia, June 28 - July 2, 2011. International Association of Geodesy Symposia. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, p. 27–30.

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 Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2014). SpaceX Files Protest Against Air Force Over National Security Launch Monopoly. IFLScience [online]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/space/spacex-files-protest-against-air-force-over-national-security-launch-monopoly/ [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 (2010). Space Acquisitions: Challenges in Commercializing Technologies Developed under the Small Business Innovation Research Program. 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

Shina, Y.E. (2013). Youth under the care of the child welfare and juvenile justice systems: A grant proposal for crossover youth. Doctoral dissertation. Long Beach, CA: California State University, Long Beach.

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

Greenhouse, L. (2007). Eyes on Supreme Court In Execution Case Tonight. New York Times, A19

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Thompson, 2006).
This sentence cites two references (Thompson, 2006; Wuchty and Uetz, 2014).

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

Two authors: (Wuchty and Uetz, 2014)
Three or more authors: (Miller et al., 2007)

About the journal

Full journal title	Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
Abbreviation	Soc. Cogn. Affect. Neurosci.
ISSN (print)	1749-5016
ISSN (online)	1749-5024
Scope	General Medicine Cognitive Neuroscience Experimental and Cognitive Psychology