How to format your references using the Clinical Laboratory citation style

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

Anderson RS. GEOPHYSICS. Pinched topography initiates the critical zone. Science. 2015 Oct 30;350(6260):506–7.

A journal article with 2 authors

Narayan R, Quataert E. Black hole accretion. Science. 2005 Jan 7;307(5706):77–80.

A journal article with 3 authors

Nam KH, Park IH, Ko SH. Patterning by controlled cracking. Nature. 2012 May 9;485(7397):221–4.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Lois C, Hong EJ, Pease S, Brown EJ, Baltimore D. Germline transmission and tissue-specific expression of transgenes delivered by lentiviral vectors. Science. 2002 Feb 1;295(5556):868–72.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Raz D, Juhola A, Serrat-Fernandez J, Galis A. Fast and Efficient Context-Aware Services. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2006.

An edited book

McGeer R, Berman M, Elliott C, Ricci R, editors. The GENI Book. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. XXX, 651 p. 255 illus., 225 illus. in color.

A chapter in an edited book

Pardo A. Combining Datatypes and Effects. In: Vene V, Uustalu T, editors. Advanced Functional Programming: 5th International School, AFP 2004, Tartu, Estonia, August 14 – 21, 2004, Revised Lectures. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2005. p. 171–209. (Hutchison D, Kanade T, Kittler J, Kleinberg JM, Mattern F, Mitchell JC, et al., editors. 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 Clinical Laboratory.

Blog post

Andrew E. Apes Make Irrational Economic Decisions – That Includes You [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/brain/apes-make-irrational-economic-decisions-includes-you/

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. Technology Transfer: Federal Efforts to Enhance the Competitiveness of Small Manufacturers. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1991 Nov. Report No.: RCED-92-30.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Robey AM. The Benefits of Testing: Individual Differences Based on Student Factors [Doctoral dissertation]. [College Park, MD]: University of Maryland, College Park; 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

Crow K. A Seminary’s Proud Tower Brings Unease to Neighbors. New York Times. 2001 May 20;145.

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	Clinical Laboratory
Abbreviation	Clin. Lab.
ISSN (print)	1433-6510
Scope	General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology