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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
1.
Wood J. Obituary: Alastair Cameron (1925-2005). Nature. 2005 Dec 8;438(7069):752.
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
Lefkowitz RJ, Shenoy SK. Transduction of receptor signals by beta-arrestins. Science. 2005 Apr 22;308(5721):512–7.
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
Jiang JW, Zhuang X, Rabczuk T. Orientation dependent thermal conductance in single-layer MoS2. Sci Rep. 2013;3:2209.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
1.
Stengel KF, Holdermann I, Cain P, Robinson C, Wild K, Sinning I. Structural basis for specific substrate recognition by the chloroplast signal recognition particle protein cpSRP43. Science. 2008 Jul 11;321(5886):253–6.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
Shamsuddin M. Physical Chemistry of Metallurgical Processes. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc; 2016.
An edited book
1.
Ramos-Casals M, Stone JH, Moutsopoulos HM, editors. Sjögren’s Syndrome: Diagnosis and Therapeutics. London: Springer; 2012. XX, 633 p. 94 illus., 67 illus. in color.
A chapter in an edited book
1.
Shen L, Peng X, Liu J, Zhao W. Towards Feature-Oriented Variability Reconfiguration in Dynamic Software Product Lines. In: Schmid K, editor. Top Productivity through Software Reuse: 12th International Conference on Software Reuse, ICSR 2011, Pohang, South Korea, June 13-17, 2011 Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011. p. 52–68. (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
1.
O`Callaghan J. The Ocean Inside Enceladus May Be Tantalizingly Within Our Reach [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/space/the-ocean-inside-enceladus-may-be-tantalizingly-within-our-reach/

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
1.
Government Accountability Office. Problems in Regulating Selected Vaccines. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1973 Feb. Report No.: B-164031(2).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1.
Beck J. Community based human trafficking awareness program: A grant proposal project [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
1.
Walsh MW. A Hive of Growth, Dallas Flirts With Bankruptcy. New York Times. 2016 Nov 21;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 titleClinical Laboratory
AbbreviationClin. Lab.
ISSN (print)1433-6510
ScopeGeneral Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

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