How to format your references using the Vision Research citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Vision Research. 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
Lewis, R. (2004). Growth industry. Nature, 428(6980), 348–349.
A journal article with 2 authors
Ho, W. C. G., & Heinke, C. O. (2009). A neutron star with a carbon atmosphere in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant. Nature, 462(7269), 71–73.
A journal article with 3 authors
Goda, K., Tsia, K. K., & Jalali, B. (2009). Serial time-encoded amplified imaging for real-time observation of fast dynamic phenomena. Nature, 458(7242), 1145–1149.
A journal article with 21 or more authors
Patanè, D., Barberi, G., Cocina, O., De Gori, P., & Chiarabba, C. (2006). Time-resolved seismic tomography detects magma intrusions at Mount Etna. Science (New York, N.Y.), 313(5788), 821–823.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Walker, C., & Fincham, B. (2011). Work and the Mental Health Crisis in Britain. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An edited book
Thornhill, R. (2014). The Parasite-Stress Theory of Values and Sociality: Infectious Disease, History and Human Values Worldwide (C. L. Fincher, Ed.). Springer International Publishing.
A chapter in an edited book
Lee, C. J. (2012). A New Government’s Policy Initiatives For School Reform in Korea. In C. Acedo, D. Adams, & S. Popa (Eds.), Quality and Qualities: Tensions in Education Reforms (pp. 85–102). SensePublishers.

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 Vision Research.

Blog post
Hale, T. (2017, January 9). Chilean Government Releases An Unexplainable “UFO Sighting” Video. IFLScience; IFLScience.

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. (2011). Surface Transportation: Competitive Grant Programs Could Benefit from Increased Performance Focus and Better Documentation of Key Decisions (GAO-11-234). 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
Nguyen, C. (2010). A psychoeducational support group for Vietnamese American family caregivers of stroke survivors: Grant writing thesis proposal [Doctoral dissertation]. 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
Saslow, L. (2006, January 8). 3 Former Executives Of Symbol on Trial. New York Times, 14LI2.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Lewis, 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Ho & Heinke, 2009; Lewis, 2004).

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

  • Two authors: (Ho & Heinke, 2009)
  • Three or more authors: (Patanè et al., 2006)

About the journal

Full journal titleVision Research
AbbreviationVision Res.
ISSN (print)0042-6989
ScopeOphthalmology
Sensory Systems

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