How to format your references using the Biostatistics citation style

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

Engheta, N. (2011). Applied physics. Antenna-guided light. Science (New York, N.Y.) 334, 317–318.

A journal article with 2 authors

Hawker, C. J. and Wooley, K. L. (2005). The convergence of synthetic organic and polymer chemistries. Science (New York, N.Y.) 309, 1200–1205.

A journal article with 3 authors

McCarter, J., Boge, G. and Darlow, G. (2001). Essays on science and society. Safeguarding the world’s natural treasures. Science (New York, N.Y.) 294, 2099–2101.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Hoeijmakers, H. J., Ehrenreich, D., Heng, K., Kitzmann, D., Grimm, S. L., Allart, R., Deitrick, R., Wyttenbach, A., Oreshenko, M., Pino, L., et al. (2018). Atomic iron and titanium in the atmosphere of the exoplanet KELT-9b. Nature 560, 453–455.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Baines, P., Ferraro, J. and Rogers, P. (2010). The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Eighteenth-Century Writers and Writing 1660 - 1789. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

An edited book

Dai, H., Liu, J. N. K. and Smirnov, E., eds. (2012). Reliable Knowledge Discovery. Boston, MA: Springer US.

A chapter in an edited book

Kilburn, B. B. (2011). Psychiatric Issues in Behavioral Health Disability. In Behavioral Health Disability: Innovations in Prevention and Management. Ed P. A. Warren. New York, NY: Springer. pp 105–131.

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 Biostatistics.

Blog post

Davis, J. (2017). Australian Biosecurity Officials Incinerate Rare Botanical Collection Due To “Paperwork Mix-Up.” https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/australian-biosecurity-officials-incinerate-rare-botanical-collection-due-to-paperwork-mixup/ [online; last 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. (2011). Green Information Technology: Agencies Have Taken Steps to Implement Requirements, but Additional Guidance on Measuring Performance Needed. GAO-11-638. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Battaglia, M. (2015). Presenting a pluralized past: Assessing the efficacy of multivocal, bison-themed lesson units as a public education and outreach strategy for archaeology.

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

Murphy, M. J. O. (2014). Weekend Entertainments from the Archives of The New York Times. New York Times, C30.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Engheta 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Hawker and Wooley 2005; Engheta 2011).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Hawker and Wooley 2005)
Three or more authors: (Hoeijmakers and others 2018)

About the journal

Full journal title	Biostatistics
ISSN (print)	1465-4644
ISSN (online)	1468-4357
Scope