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

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

Adam D. Plastics that conduct win inventors chemistry prize. Nature. 2000 Oct 12;407(6805):662.

A journal article with 2 authors

Wang F, Lee DH. The electron-pairing mechanism of iron-based superconductors. Science. 2011 Apr 8;332(6026):200–4.

A journal article with 3 authors

Barwick B, Flannigan DJ, Zewail AH. Photon-induced near-field electron microscopy. Nature. 2009 Dec 17;462(7275):902–6.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Zhang J, Song X, Li Y, Richards PG, Sun X, Waldhauser F. Inner core differential motion confirmed by earthquake waveform doublets. Science. 2005 Aug 26;309(5739):1357–60.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Corley RHV, Tinker PB. The Oil Palm. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2015.

An edited book

Avilés A. Separably Injective Banach Spaces. 1st ed. 2016. Cabello Sánchez F, Castillo JMF, González M, Moreno Y, editors. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. XXII, 217 p. (Lecture Notes in Mathematics; vol. 2132).

A chapter in an edited book

Lee WB, Shek V, Cheung B. Auditing and Mapping the Knowledge Assets of Business Processes – An Empirical Study. In: Zhang Z, Siekmann J, editors. Knowledge Science, Engineering and Management: Second International Conference, KSEM 2007, Melbourne, Australia, November 28-30, 2007 Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2007. p. 11–6. (Lecture Notes in Computer Science).

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 Canadian Family Physician.

Blog post

Hale T. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Check Out These Amazing Waterspouts Spotted In China. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/check-out-these-amazing-waterspouts-spotted-china/

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. Student Loans: Direct Loan Default Rates. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2000 Oct. Report No.: GAO-01-68.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Lyngarkos B. Examination of the relative importance of website elements for users of manufacturers representative websites [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

Rao T. Comfort Food. New York Times. 2017 Jun 29;BR13.

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	Canadian Family Physician
ISSN (print)	0008-350X
ISSN (online)	1715-5258
Scope