How to format your references using the European Journal of Pediatrics citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for European Journal of Pediatrics. 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

Nestler EJ (2003) Obituary: Patricia S. Goldman-Rakic (1937-2003). Nature 425:471

A journal article with 2 authors

Scott MP, Lawrence PA (2004) Obituary: Edward B. Lewis (1918-2004). Nature 431:143

A journal article with 3 authors

Dharmawardhana CC, Misra A, Ching W-Y (2014) Quantum mechanical metric for internal cohesion in cement crystals. Sci Rep 4:7332

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Stone JO, Balco GA, Sugden DE, et al (2003) Holocene deglaciation of Marie Byrd Land, West Antarctica. Science 299:99–102

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Douglas B (2008) Achieving Business Success with GIS. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK

An edited book

Wolf SO, Schöttli J, Frommherz D, et al (2015) Politics in South Asia: Culture, Rationality and Conceptual Flow. Springer International Publishing, Cham

A chapter in an edited book

Mann BP (2013) Broadband Energy Harvesting from a Bistable Potential Well. In: Elvin N, Erturk A (eds) Advances in Energy Harvesting Methods. Springer, New York, NY, pp 91–115

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 European Journal of Pediatrics.

Blog post

Andrew E (2015) Baboons Don’t Play Follow The Leader – They’re Democratic Travellers. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/baboons-don-t-play-follow-leader-they-re-democratic-travellers/. Accessed 30 Oct 2018

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 (1987) Compensatory Education: Chapter 1’s Comparability of Services Provision. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Morikawa T (2010) Aerodynamic analysis of an over-the-wing engine-mount aircraft. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach

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

Billard M (2013) A Brooklyn Life On the Big Screen. New York Times E5

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	European Journal of Pediatrics
Abbreviation	Eur. J. Pediatr.
ISSN (print)	0340-6199
ISSN (online)	1432-1076
Scope	Pediatrics, Perinatology, and Child Health