How to format your references using the Australian Family Physician citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Australian Family Physician. 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

Supattapone S. Biochemistry. What makes a prion infectious? Science. 2010 Feb 26;327(5969):1091–2.

A journal article with 2 authors

VandeBerg JL, Zola SM. A unique biomedical resource at risk. Nature. 2005 Sep 1;437(7055):30–2.

A journal article with 3 authors

Bailey S, Eliason WK, Steitz TA. Structure of hexameric DnaB helicase and its complex with a domain of DnaG primase. Science. 2007 Oct 19;318(5849):459–63.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Vemula PK, Kohler JE, Blass A, Williams M, Xu C, Chen L, et al. Self-assembled hydrogel fibers for sensing the multi-compartment intracellular milieu. Sci Rep. 2014 Mar 26;4:4466.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Remy JG, Letamendia C. LTE Standards. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2014.

An edited book

Sarma KV. Gaṇita-Yukti-Bhāṣā (Rationales in Mathematical Astronomy) of Jyeṣṭhadeva: Volume II - Astronomy. Ramasubramanian K, Srinivas MD, Sriram MS, editors. Gurgaon: Hindustan Book Agency; 2008. 1128 p. (Culture and History of Mathematics; vol. 4).

A chapter in an edited book

Nizhnikau R, Alvari N. Ice Hockey World Championship in Belarus: Political Context. In: Makarychev A, Yatsyk A, editors. Mega Events in Post-Soviet Eurasia: Shifting Borderlines of Inclusion and Exclusion. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan US; 2016. p. 79–97.

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 Australian Family Physician.

Blog post

Andrew E. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2014 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Massive Asteroids Battered Early Earth. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/massive-asteroids-battered-early-earth/

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. Rail Safety: The Federal Railroad Administration Is Taking Steps to Better Target Its Oversight, but Assessment of Results Is Needed to Determine Impact. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2007 Jan. Report No.: GAO-07-149.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Zhang Y. A Grant Proposal for Mindfulness-Based Self-Care Training for Child Welfare Workers [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 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

Marx L. Christina Matthews, Benjamin Macfarland III. New York Times. 2009 Apr 19;ST11.

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	Australian Family Physician
ISSN (print)	0300-8495
Scope