How to format your references using the Neuroscience citation style

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

Fuhrer MS (2009) Journal club. A physicist peels back the layers of excitement about graphene. Nature 459:1037.

A journal article with 2 authors

Cheung ACM, Cramer P (2011) Structural basis of RNA polymerase II backtracking, arrest and reactivation. Nature 471:249–253.

A journal article with 3 authors

Shim SH, Duffy TS, Shen G (2001) Stability and structure of MgSiO3 perovskite to 2300-kilometer depth in Earth’s mantle. Science 293:2437–2440.

A journal article with 20 or more authors

Ho DG, Gao R, Celaje J, Chung H-Y, Selke M (2003) Phosphadioxirane: a peroxide from an ortho-substituted arylphosphine and singlet dioxygen. Science 302:259–262.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Lamperti JW (1996) Probability: A Survey of the Mathematical Theory. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Capaccioli M (2012) Arminio Nobile e la misura del cielo: ovvero Le disavventure di un astronomo napoletano (Galano S, ed). Milano: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Stephens FO, Aigner KR (2016) Symptoms of Cancer: Local and General. In: Basics of Oncology (Aigner KR, ed), pp 47–52. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

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 Neuroscience.

Blog post

Andrew E (2015) What Happens When You Cover Your Body In Mentos And Jump In A Bathtub Full Of Coke Zero? IFLScience Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/what-happens-when-you-cover-your-body-mentos-and-jump-bathtub-full-coke-zero/ [Accessed October 30, 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 (1993) FTS 2000: Status and Mandatory Use. Washington, DC: 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

Smith KL (2012) Initial construct validation of the color figure mazes test.

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

Wasik JF (2016) Reverse Mortgages Are Quietly Making a Comeback. New York Times:B5.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Fuhrer, 2009).
This sentence cites two references (Fuhrer, 2009; Cheung and Cramer, 2011).

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

Two authors: (Cheung and Cramer, 2011)
Three or more authors: (Ho et al., 2003)

About the journal

Full journal title	Neuroscience
Abbreviation	Neuroscience
ISSN (print)	0306-4522
ISSN (online)	1873-7544
Scope	General Neuroscience