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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Evidence-Based 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Grill SW. Cell biology. Forced to be unequal. Science. 2010;330:597–8.

A journal article with 2 authors

Schmittner A, Galbraith ED. Glacial greenhouse-gas fluctuations controlled by ocean circulation changes. Nature. 2008;456:373–6.

A journal article with 3 authors

Kaul M, Garden GA, Lipton SA. Pathways to neuronal injury and apoptosis in HIV-associated dementia. Nature. 2001;410:988–94.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Yang Y, Sun C, Ren Y, et al. New route toward building active ruthenium nanoparticles on ordered mesoporous carbons with extremely high stability. Sci Rep. 2014;4:4540.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Davey KJ. Building Winning Algorithmic Trading Systems. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2014.

An edited book

Sadowski T. Loadings in Thermal Barrier Coatings of Jet Engine Turbine Blades: An Experimental Research and Numerical Modeling. Singapore: Springer 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

Ignatiev AA, Lyashenko AV. Generalization Control Characteristics in Generative Structures. In: Lyashenko AV, ed. Heteromagnetic Microelectronics: Microsystems of Active Type. New York, NY: Springer 2010:149–72.

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 Medicine.

Blog post

Andrew E. Study Suggests Population Control Is No Quick Fix For Environmental Problems. IFLScience. 2014. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/study-suggests-population-control-no-quick-fix-environmental-problems/ (accessed 30 October 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. Utilization of Consultants, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office 1970.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Gleason R. Nanosphere lithography applied to magnetic thin films. 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

Feeney K. Filipino Fast Food to Linger Over. New York Times. 2007;NJ6.

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 Medicine
Abbreviation	Evid. Based. Med.
ISSN (print)	1356-5524
ISSN (online)	1473-6810
Scope	General Medicine