How to format your references using the The Neuroscientist citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The Neuroscientist. 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
Padma TV. 2005. India’s drug tests. Nature 436:485.
A journal article with 2 authors
Sheinin MY, Wang MD. 2012. Biochemistry. A DNA twist diffuses and hops. Science 338:56–57.
A journal article with 3 authors
Rulifson EJ, Kim SK, Nusse R. 2002. Ablation of insulin-producing neurons in flies: growth and diabetic phenotypes. Science 296:1118–1120.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
Turney CSM, Kershaw AP, Clemens SC, Branch N, Moss PT, Fifield LK. 2004. Millennial and orbital variations of El Niño/Southern Oscillation and high-latitude climate in the last glacial period. Nature 428:306–310.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Kukushkin A. 2004. Radio Wave Propagation in the Marine Boundary Layer. Weinheim, FRG: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA
An edited book
Iguchi M. 2011. Modeling Multiphase Materials Processes: Gas-Liquid Systems. (Ilegbusi OJ, editor.). New York, NY: Springer
A chapter in an edited book
Tang J, Zhang P. 2015. Hydrazone-Based Lanthanide Single-Molecule Magnets. In: Zhang P, editor. Lanthanide Single Molecule Magnets. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. pp. 167–193.

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 The Neuroscientist.

Blog post
O`Callaghan J. 2016. Chinese Astronaut Says He Heard A Strange Knocking Sound While In Space. IFLScience [Internet]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/space/chinese-astronaut-strange-knocking-sound-in-space/

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. 2016. Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle: DOD Is Assessing Data on Worldwide Launch Market to Inform New Acquisition Strategy. 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
Allard L. 2006. Exposure to Low-Level Ionizing Radiation and Risk of Leukemia and Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in Participants of the Fernald Medical Monitoring Program.

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
Clarey C. 2017. At 74, a Champion Who Won’t Concede. New York Times:B8.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Padma 2005).
This sentence cites two references (Padma 2005; Sheinin and Wang 2012).

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

  • Two authors: (Sheinin and Wang 2012)
  • Three or more authors: (Turney and others 2004)

About the journal

Full journal titleThe Neuroscientist
AbbreviationNeuroscientist
ISSN (print)1073-8584
ISSN (online)1089-4098
ScopeClinical Neurology
General Neuroscience

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