How to format your references using the Critical Care citation style

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

1. Reif JH. Computing. Successes and challenges. Science. 2002;296:478–9.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Krumholz MR, McKee CF. A minimum column density of 1 g cm(-2) for massive star formation. Nature. 2008;451:1082–4.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Kovalenko MV, Scheele M, Talapin DV. Colloidal nanocrystals with molecular metal chalcogenide surface ligands. Science. 2009;324:1417–20.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Hu W, Feng Z, Teresky AK, Levine AJ. p53 regulates maternal reproduction through LIF. Nature. 2007;450:721–4.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Pardoe I. Applied Regression Modeling. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2006.

An edited book

1. Wild A, editor. CAS and Football: Landmark Cases. The Hague, The Netherlands: T. M. C. Asser Press; 2012.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Shonnard D, Lindner A, Nguyen N, Ramachandran PA, Fichana D, Hesketh R, et al. Green Engineering: Integration of Green Chemistry, Pollution Prevention, and Risk-Based Considerations. In: Kent JA, editor. Handbook of Industrial Chemistry and Biotechnology. Boston, MA: Springer US; 2012. p. 155–99.

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 Critical Care.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. Researchers Boost Memory Using Magnetic Stimulation [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2014 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/brain/researchers-boost-memory-using-magnetic-stimulation/

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. International Aviation: Competition Issues in the U.S.-U.K. Market. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1997 Jun. Report No.: T-RCED-97-103.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Akers K. The Impact of Work-Family Conflict, Gender, and Family-Friendly Policies on Organizational Attractiveness and Job Pursuit Intentions [Doctoral dissertation]. [Edwardsville, IL]: Southern Illinois University; 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

1. Markoff J. Microsoft Spends Big to Build a Computer Straight Out of Science Fiction. New York Times. 2016 Nov 20;B4.

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	Critical Care
Abbreviation	Crit. Care
ISSN (online)	1364-8535
Scope	Critical Care and Intensive Care Medicine General Medicine