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

Roccanova L. Ph.D.’s as Science Teachers: Notes from the Field. Science. 2000;290:1098a.

A journal article with 2 authors

Peers G, Price NM. Copper-containing plastocyanin used for electron transport by an oceanic diatom. Nature. 2006;441:341–4.

A journal article with 3 authors

Quoidbach J, Gilbert DT, Wilson TD. The end of history illusion. Science. 2013;339:96–8.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Liao T, Sun Z, Sun C, et al. Electronic coupling and catalytic effect on H2 evolution of MoS2/graphene nanocatalyst. Sci Rep. 2014;4:6256.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

McBain GD. Theory of Lift. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 2012.

An edited book

Hevner A. Design Research in Information Systems: Theory and Practice. Boston, MA: Springer US 2010.

A chapter in an edited book

Maoilearca LCÓ. Since Each of Us Was Several: Collaboration in the Context of the Differential Self. In: Colin N, Sachsenmaier S, eds. Collaboration in Performance Practice: Premises, Workings and Failures. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK 2016:93–107.

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

Andrews R. Discovery Of The Source Of World’s Largest Methane Pool Is Anything But Good News. IFLScience. 2017. (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. Use of Program Income by Evaluation, Dissemination, and Assessment Centers Supported by OBEMLA. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office 1982.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Greene GL. An Analysis of the Comparison between Classroom Grades Earned with a Standards-Based Grading System and Grade-Level Assessment Scores as Measured by the Missouri Assessment Program. 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

Wagner J. Wheeler’s Arm Tenderness Draws Caution Lights, Not Alarm Bells. New York Times. 2017;B12.

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