How to format your references using the EXPLORE citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for EXPLORE. 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

McCarty M. Discovering genes are made of DNA. Nature. 2003;421(6921):406.

A journal article with 2 authors

Thébault E, Fontaine C. Stability of ecological communities and the architecture of mutualistic and trophic networks. Science. 2010;329(5993):853-856.

A journal article with 3 authors

Krishnamurthy H, Piscitelli CL, Gouaux E. Unlocking the molecular secrets of sodium-coupled transporters. Nature. 2009;459(7245):347-355.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Ninfo A, Fontana A, Mozzi P, Ferrarese F. The map of Altinum, ancestor of Venice. Science. 2009;325(5940):577.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kriegel J. Unfairly Labeled. John Wiley & Sons, Inc; 2016.

An edited book

García-Pedrajas N, Herrera F, Fyfe C, Benítez JM, Ali M, eds. Trends in Applied Intelligent Systems: 23rd International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Other Applications of Applied Intelligent Systems, IEA/AIE 2010, Cordoba, Spain, June 1-4, 2010, Proceedings, Part II. Vol 6097. Springer; 2010.

A chapter in an edited book

McNeeley MF, Itani M, Rohrmann CA. Diagnostic Fluoroscopy for Imaging Crohn’s Disease. In: Fichera A, Krane MK, eds. Crohn’s Disease: Basic Principles. Springer International Publishing; 2015:65-74.

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 EXPLORE.

Blog post

O`Callaghan J. Why Was A Leap Second Added To 2016? IFLScience.

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. Commercial Motor Vehicles: Significant Actions Remain to Improve Truck Safety. U.S. Government Printing Office; 2000.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Graber ME. Best Practices in Enhancement Deals: Nonprofit and for Profit Theatrical Collaborations. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach; 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

Goldstein M, Eder S, Kelly K, Stevenson A, Protess B. Sources of Trump Aides’ Wealth Include Cosmetics and ‘Seinfeld’ Reruns. New York Times. April 1, 2017:A15.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

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	EXPLORE
Abbreviation	Explore (NY)
ISSN (print)	1550-8307
Scope	Analysis Complementary and alternative medicine General Nursing Chiropractics