How to format your references using the Drug Safety citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Drug Safety. 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. Retallack GJ. Ediacaran life on land. Nature. 2013;493:89–92.
A journal article with 2 authors
1. Ramsey JM, Chester FM. Hybrid fracture and the transition from extension fracture to shear fracture. Nature. 2004;428:63–6.
A journal article with 3 authors
1. Nishida N, Katamine S, Manuelidis L. Reciprocal interference between specific CJD and scrapie agents in neural cell cultures. Science. 2005;310:493–6.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
1. Huber R, Ghilardi MF, Massimini M, Tononi G. Local sleep and learning. Nature. 2004;430:78–81.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1. Kimberlin L, zur Linden A, Ruoff L. Atlas of Clinical Imaging and Anatomy of the Equine Head. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2016.
An edited book
1. Paganini G, Neto JRM, editors. Renaissance Scepticisms. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2009.
A chapter in an edited book
1. Flannigan KL, Wallace JL. Hydrogen Sulfide: Its Production, Release and Functions. In: Kimura H, editor. Hydrogen Sulfide and its Therapeutic Applications. Vienna: Springer; 2013. p. 109–25.

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 Drug Safety.

Blog post
1. Davis J. U.S. Navy To Limit Sonar Use During Training To Protect Whales And Dolphins [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/us-navy-limit-use-sonar-during-training-pacific-protect-whales-and-dolphins/

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. Digests of Unpublished Decisions of the Comptroller General of the United States, Vol. IV, No. 2. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1987 Nov. Report No.: 135433.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1. Carter CA. The Panhellenic Project: Assessing learning engagement using Web 2.0 technologies [Doctoral dissertation]. [Malibu, CA]: Pepperdine University; 2008.

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. Vecsey G. A Personal Loss for a Hofstra Alumnus. New York Times. 2009 Dec 4;B19.

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 titleDrug Safety
AbbreviationDrug Saf.
ISSN (print)0114-5916
ISSN (online)1179-1942
ScopePharmacology (medical)
Pharmacology
Toxicology

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