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 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

Reich JG (2002). Embryonic stem cells. The debate in Germany. Science 296, 265.

A journal article with 2 authors

Kurzban R & Barrett HC (2012). Behavior. Origins of cumulative culture. Science 335, 1056–1057.

A journal article with 3 authors

Beldade P, Koops K & Brakefield PM (2002). Developmental constraints versus flexibility in morphological evolution. Nature 416, 844–847.

A journal article with 20 or more authors

Chambouvet A, Morin P, Marie D & Guillou L (2008). Control of toxic marine dinoflagellate blooms by serial parasitic killers. Science 322, 1254–1257.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Becker K & Rautenstrauch K (2012). Ingenieurholzbau nach Eurocode 5: Konstruktion, Berechnung, Ausführung. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany.

An edited book

Pernul G, Y A Ryan P & Weippl E eds. (2015). Computer Security -- ESORICS 2015: 20th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security, Vienna, Austria, September 21-25, 2015, Proceedings, Part II. Springer International Publishing, Cham.

A chapter in an edited book

Lazár D & Schansker G (2009). Models of Chlorophyll a Fluorescence Transients. In Photosynthesis in silico: Understanding Complexity from Molecules to Ecosystems, ed. Laisk A, Nedbal L & Govindjee, Advances in Photosynthesis and Respiration, pp. 85–123. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.

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

Luntz S (2014). Cassini Captures Spectacular View Of Sunlight Glinting Off Of Titan’s Seas. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/space/titans-polar-seas-glint-sunlight/ [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 (1997). District of Columbia Government: Overtime Costs Exceed Those of Neighboring Governments. 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

Mani V (2011). Empirical study of link between operations and financial performance for retailers (Doctoral dissertation thesis). University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC.

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

Vecsey G (2009). Mileposts, With South Africa Around the Bend. New York TimesSP10.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Reich, 2002).
This sentence cites two references (Reich, 2002; Kurzban & Barrett, 2012).

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

Two authors: (Kurzban & Barrett, 2012)
Three or more authors: (Chambouvet et al., 2008)

About the journal

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