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

Marrucci, G. Materials science. Polymers go with the flow. Science 301, 1681–1682 (2003).

A journal article with 2 authors

Burt, D. & Pourquie, O. Genetics. Chicken genome--science nuggets to come soon. Science 300, 1669 (2003).

A journal article with 3 authors

Jensen, R. B., Carreira, A. & Kowalczykowski, S. C. Purified human BRCA2 stimulates RAD51-mediated recombination. Nature 467, 678–683 (2010).

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Hasan, S., Hassa, P. O., Imhof, R. & Hottiger, M. O. Transcription coactivator p300 binds PCNA and may have a role in DNA repair synthesis. Nature 410, 387–391 (2001).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bisgaard, S. & Kulahci, M. Time Series Analysis and Forecasting by Example: Bisgaard/Time Series by Example. (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2011).

An edited book

Practical Procedures in Elective Orthopedic Surgery: Upper Extremity and Spine. (Springer, London, 2012).

A chapter in an edited book

Blake Simpson, C. & Cheung, E. J. Evaluation of Vocal Fold Paralysis. in Vocal Fold Paralysis (eds. Sulica, L. & Blitzer, A.) 55–62 (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2006).

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

Andrew, E. Treasure Trove Of Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs Discovered By Road Workers In China. IFLScience https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/forty-three-fossilized-dinosaur-eggs-discovered-road-workers-china/ (2015).

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. Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program. (1993).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Selis, A. H. Holding the center: How one Jewish day school negotiates differences in a pluralistic community. (University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD, 2010).

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

Wagner, J. Battered but Persevering, Mets Reach the Threshold of the Postseason. New York Times D2 (2016).

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