How to format your references using the Children citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Children. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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

Dobson, C.M. Protein Folding and Misfolding. Nature 2003, 426, 884–890.

A journal article with 2 authors

Tzeng, S.-R.; Kalodimos, C.G. Dynamic Activation of an Allosteric Regulatory Protein. Nature 2009, 462, 368–372.

A journal article with 3 authors

Schön, J.H.; Kloc, C.; Batlogg, B. High-Temperature Superconductivity in Lattice-Expanded C60. Science 2001, 293, 2432–2434.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Xie, W.-Z.; Yan, C.; Ying, X.-Y.; Zhu, S.-Y.; Shi, H.-S.; Wang, Y.; Cheung, E.F.C.; Chan, R.C.K. Domain-Specific Hedonic Deficits towards Social Affective but Not Monetary Incentives in Social Anhedonia. Sci. Rep. 2014, 4, 4056.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Young, G.C. Municipal Solid Waste to Energy Conversion Processes; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, 2010; ISBN 9780470608616.

An edited book

Outer Magnetospheric Boundaries: Cluster Results; Paschmann, G., Schwartz, S.J., Escoubet, C.P., Haaland, S., Eds.; Space Sciences Series of ISSI; Springer Netherlands: Dordrecht, 2005; Vol. 20; ISBN 9781402034886.

A chapter in an edited book

Ruzicka, F.; Horka, M.; Hola, V. Extracellular Polysaccharides in Microbial Biofilm and Their Influence on the Electrophoretic Properties of Microbial Cells. In Capillary Electrophoresis of Carbohydrates: From Monosaccharides to Complex Polysaccharides; Volpi, N., Ed.; Humana Press: Totowa, NJ, 2011; pp. 105–126 ISBN 9781607618744.

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 Children.

Blog post

Taub, B. Restrictive Texas Abortion Law Struck Down By Supreme Court Available online: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/restrictive-texas-abortion-law-struck-down-supreme-court/ (accessed on 30 October 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 Issues to Be Considered During Deliberations to Reauthorize the Federal-Aid Highway Program; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1990;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Britigan, D.H. Health Information Sources and Health Literacy Levels of Latinos in a Midwestern Tri -State Area. Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati: Cincinnati, OH, 2009.

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

Markoff, J. Microsoft Spends Big to Build a Computer Straight Out of Science Fiction. New York Times 2016, B4.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [1].
This sentence cites two references [1,2].
This sentence cites four references [1–4].

About the journal

Full journal title	Children
Abbreviation	Children (Basel)
ISSN (online)	2227-9067
Scope