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

Nadeem M. Unconditionally secure commitment in position-based quantum cryptography. Sci. Rep. 2014;4:6774.

A journal article with 2 authors

Tsuda A, Osuka A. Fully conjugated porphyrin tapes with electronic absorption bands that reach into infrared. Science. 2001;293(5527):79–82.

A journal article with 3 authors

Bhavsar AP, Guttman JA, Finlay BB. Manipulation of host-cell pathways by bacterial pathogens. Nature. 2007;449(7164):827–834.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Skryabin DV, Luan F, Knight JC, et al. Soliton self-frequency shift cancellation in photonic crystal fibers. Science. 2003;301(5640):1705–1708.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Tannenbaum LV. Alternative Ecological Risk Assessment. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2013.

An edited book

Douglass JA, ed. The New Flagship University: Changing the Paradigm from Global Ranking to National Relevancy. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan US; 2016 XXI, 217 p p.

A chapter in an edited book

McGoldrick PJ, Keeling KA, Stanbridge A. Motivating Pro-Environmental Behaviors: Utility of the Decisional Balance Scale, Self-Efficacy and Reactance. In: Robinson L Jr, ed. Proceedings of the 2009 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015:5–5.

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

Andrew E. Becoming A Father Can “Rewire” A Man’s Brain. IFLScience. 2014;(https://www.iflscience.com/brain/becoming-father-can-rewire-mans-brain/). (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. Payment to Counties: More Clarity Could Help Ensure County Expenditures Are Consistent with Key Parts of the Secure Rural Schools Act. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2012.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Allison CL. An Investigation into the Experiences of Traditional Higher Education Instructors Transitioning into Effective Online Instructors [Doctoral dissertation]. Scottsdale, AZ: Northcentral University; 2015.

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

Joy S. Pursuing Inside-Out Strategies. New York Times. 2015;D17.

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