How to format your references using the African Journal of Laboratory Medicine citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for African Journal of Laboratory Medicine (AJLM). 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Velasquez-Manoff M. Gut microbiome: the peacekeepers. Nature 2015;518(7540):S3-11.

A journal article with 2 authors

Gronewold AD, Stow CA. Environment. Water loss from the Great Lakes. Science 2014;343(6175):1084–1085.

A journal article with 3 authors

Gardner TJ, Naef F, Nottebohm F. Freedom and rules: the acquisition and reprogramming of a bird’s learned song. Science 2005;308(5724):1046–1049.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Manzke T, Guenther U, Ponimaskin EG, et al. 5-HT4(a) receptors avert opioid-induced breathing depression without loss of analgesia. Science 2003;301(5630):226–229.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Speight JG, Singh K. Environmental Management of Energy from Biofuels and Biofeedstocks. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2014;

An edited book

Ruiz-Lopez MF, Olivares del Valle FJ, editors. 9th Congress on Electronic Structure: Principles and Applications (ESPA 2014): A Conference Selection from Theoretical Chemistry Accounts. 1st ed. 2016. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2016;

A chapter in an edited book

Fischer M. Pear Breeding. In: Priyadarshan PM, Jain SM, editors. Breeding Plantation Tree Crops: Temperate Species. New York, NY: Springer, 2009; p. 135–160.

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 African Journal of Laboratory Medicine.

Blog post

Andrew E. How To Protect Planes And Passengers From Explosions On The Surface Of The Sun [Homepage on the Internet]. IFLScience. 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30];Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/how-protect-planes-and-passengers-explosions-surface-sun/

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. [Comments on the Federal Communications Commission’s Implementation of Section 254(h) of the Communications Act of 1934]. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1998;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Gao S. Characterization of the TAT cell penetrating peptide and directed evolution of new cell penetrating peptides for protein and nucleotide delivery to neuronal -like cells. 2009;

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

Paulson M. ‘King Kong’ Gets Closer to Broadway. New York Times. 2017;C2.

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	African Journal of Laboratory Medicine
ISSN (print)	2225-2002
ISSN (online)	2225-2010
Scope