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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Evidence-Based Nursing. 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

Bowles S. Did warfare among ancestral hunter-gatherers affect the evolution of human social behaviors? Science. 2009;324:1293–8.

A journal article with 2 authors

Weitzer S, Martinez J. The human RNA kinase hClp1 is active on 3’ transfer RNA exons and short interfering RNAs. Nature. 2007;447:222–6.

A journal article with 3 authors

Kirichok Y, Krapivinsky G, Clapham DE. The mitochondrial calcium uniporter is a highly selective ion channel. Nature. 2004;427:360–4.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Smet JH, Deutschmann RA, Ertl F, et al. Gate-voltage control of spin interactions between electrons and nuclei in a semiconductor. Nature. 2002;415:281–6.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kagan E, Ben-Gal I. Probabilistic Search for Tracking Targets. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 2013.

An edited book

Johnson C. Forests for the People: The Story of America’s Eastern National Forests. Washington, DC: Island Press/Center for Resource Economics 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

Yu W, Li X. Stable Adaptive Compensation with Fuzzy Cerebellar Model Articulation Controller for Overhead Cranes. In: Yu W, ed. Recent Advances in Intelligent Control Systems. London: Springer 2009:67–85.

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 Nursing.

Blog post

Carpineti A. New Battery Promises More Power In Half The Size. IFLScience. 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/technology/new-battery-promises-more-power-in-half-the-size/ (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. Army Training: Expenditures for Troop Schools Have Not Been Justified. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office 1993.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Sheah J. Reading Dreams: Representation of Dreams Through Artists’ Books. 2015.

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

Gordon MR. How the President Wrongly Blamed The Times for a Terrorist’s Survival. New York Times. 2017;A11.

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 Nursing
Abbreviation	Evid. Based. Nurs.
ISSN (print)	1367-6539
ISSN (online)	1468-9618
Scope	Fundamentals and skills