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

Roebroeks W. Archaeology: Art on the move. Nature. 2014 Oct 9;514(7521):170–1.

A journal article with 2 authors

Booth B, Bellouin N. Climate change: Black carbon and atmospheric feedbacks. Nature. 2015 Mar 12;519(7542):167–8.

A journal article with 3 authors

Romero R, Dey SK, Fisher SJ. Preterm labor: one syndrome, many causes. Science. 2014 Aug 15;345(6198):760–5.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Jiao Y, Shi C, Edil BH, de Wilde RF, Klimstra DS, Maitra A, et al. DAXX/ATRX, MEN1, and mTOR pathway genes are frequently altered in pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. Science. 2011 Mar 4;331(6021):1199–203.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Vaseghi SV. Advanced Digital Signal Processing and Noise Reduction. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2006.

An edited book

McGowan BL, Palmer RT, Wood JL, Hibbler DF, editors. Black Men in the Academy: Narratives of Resiliency, Achievement, and Success. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan US; 2016. XV, 234 p.

A chapter in an edited book

Basile G, Bernardin C, Jara M, Komorowski T, Olla S. Thermal Conductivity in Harmonic Lattices with Random Collisions. In: Lepri S, editor. Thermal Transport in Low Dimensions: From Statistical Physics to Nanoscale Heat Transfer. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. p. 215–37. (Lecture Notes in Physics).

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. Will The Presidential Candidates Have A Substantive Debate On Climate Change? [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/will-presidential-candidates-have-substantive-debate-climate-change/

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. Incorporation of Contract Clause Into Proposed FPR Temporary Regulation. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1980 Apr. Report No.: B-197574.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Parker EC. Perceptions of youth with diabetes and their parents/guardians about youth eating habits and nutrition-related difficulties [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2010.

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

Becker JO, Goldman A, Apuzzo M. Emails Disclose Trump Son’s Glee at Russian Offer. New York Times. 2017 Jul 11;A1.

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