How to format your references using the Journal of Comparative Physiology A citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Comparative Physiology A. 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 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

Goodman S (2004) Getting mobile in Europe. Nature 427:868–869

A journal article with 2 authors

Alici KB, Gallardo IF (2013) Detecting secondary structure and surface orientation of helical peptide monolayers from resonant hybridization signals. Sci Rep 3:2956

A journal article with 3 authors

Werfel J, Petersen K, Nagpal R (2014) Designing collective behavior in a termite-inspired robot construction team. Science 343:754–758

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Posson DJ, Ge P, Miller C, et al (2005) Small vertical movement of a K+ channel voltage sensor measured with luminescence energy transfer. Nature 436:848–851

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Loughran M (2010) Auditing for Dummies®. Wiley Publishing, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Huang X, Chen Y-S, Ao S-I (eds) (2008) Advances in Communication Systems and Electrical Engineering. Springer US, Boston, MA

A chapter in an edited book

Wang RF (2007) Spatial Processing and View-Dependent Representations. In: Mast F, Jäncke L (eds) Spatial Processing in Navigation, Imagery and Perception. Springer US, Boston, MA, pp 49–65

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 Journal of Comparative Physiology A.

Blog post

Andrew E (2014) How Rosetta Made An Epic Journey Through Space And Overcame Incredible Challenges. In: IFLScience. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (1971) Assessment of the Teacher Corps Program at Northern Arizona University and Participating Schools on the Navajo and Hopi Indian Reservations. 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

Tuinenga JM (2010) John Corigliano’s Sonata for violin and piano: An analysis of context, structure, and style. 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

Leland J (2017) Was It ‘Normal New York City Conversation’? Did Trump Speak Fast? New York Times A23

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Goodman 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Goodman 2004; Alici and Gallardo 2013).

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

Two authors: (Alici and Gallardo 2013)
Three or more authors: (Posson et al. 2005)

About the journal

Full journal title	Journal of Comparative Physiology A
Abbreviation	J. Comp. Physiol. A Neuroethol. Sens. Neural Behav. Physiol.
ISSN (print)	0340-7594
ISSN (online)	1432-1351
Scope	Animal Science and Zoology Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Physiology Behavioral Neuroscience