How to format your references using the Chinese Medical Journal citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Chinese Medical Journal (CMJ). 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

Buskirk S. Ecology. Keeping an eye on the neighbors. Science 2004;306:238–9.

A journal article with 2 authors

Larson HJ, Ghinai I. Lessons from polio eradication. Nature 2011;473:446–7.

A journal article with 3 authors

Good SP, Noone D, Bowen G. WATER RESOURCES. Hydrologic connectivity constrains partitioning of global terrestrial water fluxes. Science 2015;349:175–7.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Mekhail K, Seebacher J, Gygi SP, Moazed D. Role for perinuclear chromosome tethering in maintenance of genome stability. Nature 2008;456:667–70.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Werner M. Global Displacements. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2015.

An edited book

Bond P, editor. Communications and Networking in China: 1st International Business Conference, Chinacombiz 2008, Hangzhou, China, August 2008, Revised Selected Papers. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009.

A chapter in an edited book

Minelli A. Individuals, Hierarchies and the Levels of Selection: A Chapter in Stephen J. Gould’s Evolutionary Theory. In: Danieli GA, Minelli A, Pievani T, eds. Stephen J. Gould: The Scientific Legacy. Milano: Springer; 2013: 73–83.

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 Chinese Medical Journal.

Blog post

Andrews R. This Breathtaking Video Reveals How Humanity Took Over The World. IFLScience 2016. (October 30, 2018). Retrieved from https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/breathtaking-video-reveals-humanity-took-over-world/.

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. Direct Student Loans: Additional Steps Would Increase Borrowers’ Awareness of Electronic Debiting and Reduce Federal Administrative Costs. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2002.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

McCorkle WB. Tongue, Nib, Block, Bit: Rhetorical Delivery and Technologies of Writing. 2005.

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

Rojas R. N.Y.U. Takes Cosby’s Name Off Workshop About Film. New York Times. September 3, 2015:A28.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

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	Chinese Medical Journal
Abbreviation	Chin. Med. J. (Engl.)
ISSN (print)	0366-6999
ISSN (online)	2542-5641
Scope	General Medicine