How to format your references using the American Journal of Epidemiology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for American Journal of Epidemiology. 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

Degen M. Science has flourished in eastern Germany since reunification, bringing researchers from far and near. But the tide of investment may be turning. Nature. 2003;423(6936):204–205.

A journal article with 2 authors

Meharg AA, Killham K. Environment: A pre-industrial source of dioxins and furans. Nature. 2003;421(6926):909–910.

A journal article with 3 authors

Ye K, Malinina L, Patel DJ. Recognition of small interfering RNA by a viral suppressor of RNA silencing. Nature. 2003;426(6968):874–878.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Nakamura I, Hama S, Itakura S, et al. Lipocalin2 as a plasma marker for tumors with hypoxic regions. Sci. Rep. 2014;4:7235.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hornberger G, Wiberg P. Numerical Methods in the Hydrological Sciences. Washington D. C.: American Geophysical Union; 2005.

An edited book

Babu P. Extremophiles and Their Applications in Medical Processes. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015 IX, 54 p. 8 illus. in color p.

A chapter in an edited book

Beckmann D. Non-local Transport in Superconductor–Ferromagnet Hybrid Structures. In: Sidorenko A, ed. Fundamentals of Superconducting Nanoelectronics. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011:101–116.

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 American Journal of Epidemiology.

Blog post

Taub B. Activating The Brain’s “No-Go” Neurons Can Kill The Urge To Drink. IFLScience. 2016;(https://www.iflscience.com/brain/activating-the-brains-nogo-neurons-can-kill-the-urge-to-drink/). (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. Compensatory Education: Aguilar v. Felton Decision’s Continuing Impact on Chapter 1 Program. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1989.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Laubacher TL. Simplifying “Inherently Governmental” Functions: Choosing between a Principled Approach or More of the Same [Doctoral dissertation]. Washington, DC: George Washington University; 2016.

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

de la MERCED MJ. Seeking Next Big Drug, Gilead to Buy Kite Pharma. New York Times. 2017;B3.

In-text citations

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

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	American Journal of Epidemiology
Abbreviation	Am. J. Epidemiol.
ISSN (print)	0002-9262
ISSN (online)	1476-6256
Scope	Epidemiology