How to format your references using the Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. 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

Monack DM: Immunology: recognition of a unique partner. Nature 2011, 477:543–544.

A journal article with 2 authors

Unniraman S, Schatz DG: Strand-biased spreading of mutations during somatic hypermutation. Science 2007, 317:1227–1230.

A journal article with 3 authors

Van Tonder GJ, Lyons MJ, Ejima Y: Visual structure of a Japanese Zen garden. Nature 2002, 419:359–360.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Zhang X, Hu C, Bai H, Yan Y, Li J, Yang H, Lu X, Xi G: Construction of self-supported three-dimensional TiO2 sheeted networks with enhanced photocatalytic activity. Sci Rep 2013, 3:3563.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Schmidt AB: Financial Markets and Trading. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2011.

An edited book

Castellanos SG: Competition and Efficiency in the Mexican Banking Industry: Theory and Empirical Evidence. Palgrave Macmillan US; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

Granados A, Mayer E, Norton C, Ellis D, Mobasheri M, Low-Beer N, Higham J, Kneebone R, Bello F: Haptics Modelling for Digital Rectal Examinations. In Biomedical Simulation: 6th International Symposium, ISBMS 2014, Strasbourg, France, October 16-17, 2014. Proceedings. Edited by Bello F, Cotin S. Springer International Publishing; 2014:40–49.

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 Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences.

Blog post

O`Callaghan J: Dawn Spacecraft Denied Exciting Mission To Explore A New Body In The Asteroid Belt. IFLScience 2016,

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: School Dropouts: Survey of Local Programs. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1987.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Sanghvi AM: Characterization of algal biomeal for applications in food. 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

Poniewozik J: Reviving a Snow Globe Town and Its Comfortable Nostalgia. New York Times 2016,

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	Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences
Abbreviation	Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci.
ISSN (print)	2352-1546
Scope