How to format your references using the Family Medicine citation style

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

Smaglik P. Baywatch: San Francisco. Nature. 2004 Feb 12;427(6975):658–9.

A journal article with 2 authors

Turck F, Coupland G. Plant science. When vernalization makes sense. Science. 2011 Jan 7;331(6013):36–7.

A journal article with 3 authors

Walkden G, Parker J, Kelley S. A late Triassic impact ejecta layer in southwestern Britain. Science. 2002 Dec 13;298(5601):2185–8.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Pushp A, Parker CV, Pasupathy AN, Gomes KK, Ono S, Wen J, et al. Extending universal nodal excitations optimizes superconductivity in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta. Science. 2009 Jun 26;324(5935):1689–93.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Metzger RM. The Physical Chemist’s Toolbox. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2012.

An edited book

Renandya WA, Widodo HP, editors. English Language Teaching Today: Linking Theory and Practice. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. XIV, 307 p. 4 illus., 2 illus. in color. (English Language Education; vol. 5).

A chapter in an edited book

Wein W, Ladikos A, Fuerst B, Shah A, Sharma K, Navab N. Global Registration of Ultrasound to MRI Using the LC2 Metric for Enabling Neurosurgical Guidance. In: Mori K, Sakuma I, Sato Y, Barillot C, Navab N, editors. Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention – MICCAI 2013: 16th International Conference, Nagoya, Japan, September 22-26, 2013, Proceedings, Part I. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013. p. 34–41. (Hutchison D, Kanade T, Kittler J, Kleinberg JM, Mattern F, Mitchell JC, et al., editors. Lecture Notes in Computer Science).

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 Family Medicine.

Blog post

Andrew E. Robot Hitchhiker Will Make Its Way Across The U.S. This Summer. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015.

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. Railroad Safety: Accidents in Pennsylvania and Related Federal Enforcement Actions. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1988 Nov. Report No.: RCED-89-52.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Stone MA. A quantitative study of perceptions of female Air Force leaders [Doctoral dissertation]. [Phoenix, AZ]: University of Phoenix; 2008.

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

Poniewozik J. Sci-Fi Western on HBO? Yes, It’s Dark. New York Times. 2016 Sep 30;C1.

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	Family Medicine
Abbreviation	Fam. Med.
ISSN (print)	0742-3225
ISSN (online)	1938-3800
Scope	Family Practice