How to format your references using the Acta Pharmacologica Sinica citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Acta Pharmacologica Sinica. 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 references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles 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

Takahashi, T. Ocean science. The fate of industrial carbon dioxide. Science 305, 352–353 (2004).

A journal article with 2 authors

Rus, D. & Tolley, M. T. Design, fabrication and control of soft robots. Nature 521, 467–475 (2015).

A journal article with 3 authors

Alfe, D., Gillan, M. J. & Price, G. D. Constraints on the composition of the Earth’s core from ab initio calculations. Nature 405, 172–175 (2000).

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Anderson, J. S., Reisz, R. R., Scott, D., Fröbisch, N. B. & Sumida, S. S. A stem batrachian from the Early Permian of Texas and the origin of frogs and salamanders. Nature 453, 515–518 (2008).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Prydie, D. & Hewitt, I. Practical Physiotherapy for Small Animal Practice. (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2015).

An edited book

Block Copolymers I. vol. 189 (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2005).

A chapter in an edited book

Aaen, I. Roles in Innovative Software Teams: A Design Experiment. in Human Benefit through the Diffusion of Information Systems Design Science Research: IFIP WG 8.2/8.6 International Working Conference, Perth, Australia, March 30 – April 1, 2010. Proceedings (eds. Pries-Heje, J., Venable, J., Bunker, D., Russo, N. L. & DeGross, J. I.) 73–88 (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2010).

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 Acta Pharmacologica Sinica.

Blog post

Davis, J. These Weird Videos Could Prove That Apes Have ‘Theory Of Mind’. IFLScience https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/these-weird-videos-could-prove-that-apes-have-theory-of-mind/ (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. Army Aviation and Troop Command. (1997).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Munoz, S. Mental Health Care for Foreign Born Latinos: A Grant Proposal. (California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, 2017).

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

Rothenberg, B. Crowd Lifts Frenchwoman. Now, Who Will Hoist a First Major Trophy? New York Times D4 (2017).

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

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	Acta Pharmacologica Sinica
Abbreviation	Acta Pharmacol. Sin.
ISSN (print)	1671-4083
ISSN (online)	1745-7254
Scope	General Medicine Pharmacology (medical) Pharmacology