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

Cohen J. AIDS MEETING: South African Leader Declines to Join the Chorus on HIV and AIDS. Science. 2000 Jul 14;289(5477):222a.

A journal article with 2 authors

Keeling MJ, Gilligan CA. Metapopulation dynamics of bubonic plague. Nature. 2000 Oct 19;407(6806):903–6.

A journal article with 3 authors

Cooper TF, O’Leary RA, Lough JM. Growth of Western Australian corals in the anthropocene. Science. 2012 Feb 3;335(6068):593–6.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Azzouz M, Ralph GS, Storkebaum E, Walmsley LE, Mitrophanous KA, Kingsman SM, et al. VEGF delivery with retrogradely transported lentivector prolongs survival in a mouse ALS model. Nature. 2004 May 27;429(6990):413–7.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Massotte P, Corsi P. Smart Decisions in Complex Systems. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2017.

An edited book

Wheeler DS, Wong HR, Shanley TP, editors. Pediatric Critical Care Medicine: Volume 1: Care of the Critically Ill or Injured Child. 2nd ed. 2014. London: Springer; 2014. XXIV, 771 p. 208 illus., 91 illus. in color.

A chapter in an edited book

Ambroziak AA. The Legal Framework for Regional State Aid in the European Union in 2014–2020 and Its Impact on the Attractiveness of Poland’s Regions to Investors. In: Ambroziak AA, editor. New Cohesion Policy of the European Union in Poland: How It Will Influence the Investment Attractiveness of Regions in 2014-2020. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014. p. 63–76. (Contributions to Economics).

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

Hale T. Earthquake Scientists Have Lost Their Favorite Curb In San Francisco [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/earthquake-scientists-have-lost-their-favorite-curb-in-san-francisco/

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. State Infrastructure Banks: A Mechanism to Expand Federal Transportation Financing. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1996 Oct. Report No.: RCED-97-9.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Boudreau ML. Chanter en français en Louisiane: Du passé vers le futur [Doctoral dissertation]. [ Lafayette, LA]: University of Louisiana; 2014.

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

Bidgood J, Schwartz J. Hurricane Nate Hits Gulf Coast Region Still Recovering From Katrina. New York Times. 2017 Oct 7;A18.

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