How to format your references using the Visual Neuroscience citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Visual Neuroscience. 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

Crame JA (2009). Evolution. Time’s stamp on modern biogeography. Science 323, 720–721.

A journal article with 2 authors

James JR & Vale RD (2012). Biophysical mechanism of T-cell receptor triggering in a reconstituted system. Nature 487, 64–69.

A journal article with 3 authors

Kulmala M, Pirjola L & Makela JM (2000). Stable sulphate clusters as a source of new atmospheric particles. Nature 404, 66–69.

A journal article with 20 or more authors

Vandergoes MJ, Newnham RM, Preusser F, Hendy CH, Lowell TV, Fitzsimons SJ, Hogg AG, Kasper HU & Schlüchter C (2005). Regional insolation forcing of late Quaternary climate change in the Southern Hemisphere. Nature 436, 242–245.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) (2011). Supplemental Proceedings. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Misra S, Woungang I & Chandra Misra S eds. (2009). Guide to Wireless Ad Hoc Networks. Springer, London.

A chapter in an edited book

Kerzner DS & Chodikoff DW (2016). International Tax Enforcement in the United States. In International Tax Evasion in the Global Information Age, ed. Chodikoff DW, pp. 153–205. Springer International Publishing, Cham.

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 Visual Neuroscience.

Blog post

Hale T (2015). Check Out These Trippy Photographs Of Australia Taken From The International Space Station. 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 (1997). Aviation Security: Posting Notices at Domestic Airports. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Goldberg DS (2010). Poly (amido amine) dendrimers: Transepithelial transport mechanisms and applications in oral drug delivery (Doctoral dissertation thesis). University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD.

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). Court Hears Whether a Drug Statement Is Protected Free Speech for Students. New York TimesA16.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Crame, 2009).
This sentence cites two references (Crame, 2009; James & Vale, 2012).

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

Two authors: (James & Vale, 2012)
Three or more authors: (Vandergoes et al., 2005)

About the journal

Full journal title	Visual Neuroscience
Abbreviation	Vis. Neurosci.
ISSN (print)	0952-5238
ISSN (online)	1469-8714
Scope	Physiology Sensory Systems