How to format your references using the Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. 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]

H. Ledford, “Cheap at any price?,” Nature, vol. 447, no. 7141, p. 131, May 2007.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

O. Abramov and S. J. Mojzsis, “Microbial habitability of the Hadean Earth during the late heavy bombardment,” Nature, vol. 459, no. 7245, pp. 419–422, May 2009.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

A. Pertsinidis, Y. Zhang, and S. Chu, “Subnanometre single-molecule localization, registration and distance measurements,” Nature, vol. 466, no. 7306, pp. 647–651, Jul. 2010.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

P. Kalas, J. R. Graham, E. Chiang, et al., “Optical images of an exosolar planet 25 light-years from Earth,” Science, vol. 322, no. 5906, pp. 1345–1348, Nov. 2008.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

R. H. Bayor, Fiorello La Guardia. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2017.

An edited book

[1]

N. T. Nguyen, R. Katarzyniak, and S.-M. Chen, Eds., Advances in Intelligent Information and Database Systems, vol. 283. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2010.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

M. Ieva, C. Ziliani, and J. C. Gázquez-Abad, “Memory for Private Label Versus National Brand in Feature Advertising,” in Advances in National Brand and Private Label Marketing: Second International Conference, 2015, F. J. Martínez-López, J. C. Gázquez-Abad, and R. Sethuraman, Eds. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2015, pp. 43–50.

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 Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Blog post

[1]

E. Andrew, “Frances Kelsey, Doctor Who Saved The U.S. From Thalidomide, Dies At 101,” IFLScience, 10-Aug-2015. [Online]. Available: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/frances-kelsey-who-saved-us-thalidomide-dies-101/. [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

[1]

Government Accountability Office, “Transportation Issue Area Plan: Fiscal Years 1998-2000--1999 Update,” U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, IAP-98-15, Jun. 1998.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

B. Zacher, “The roles of electrode contacts in organic photovoltaics,” Doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 2013.

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]

B. Brantley, “Oh, the Faults in Their Stars,” New York Times, p. C2, 25-Oct-2017.

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	Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Abbreviation	Evid. Based. Complement. Alternat. Med.
ISSN (print)	1741-427X
ISSN (online)	1741-4288
Scope	Complementary and alternative medicine