How to format your references using the Forensic Science, Medicine, and Pathology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Forensic Science, Medicine, and Pathology. 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

1. Hirschmann M. Earth science: a wet mantle conductor? Nature. 2006;439:E3; discussion E3-4.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Palfrey J, Zittrain J. Information science. Better data for a better Internet. Science. 2011;334:1210–1.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Gwynne DT, Judge KA, Kelly CD. Evidence for male allocation in pipefish? Nature. 2010;466:E11; discussion E12.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Valverde F, Mouradov A, Soppe W, Ravenscroft D, Samach A, Coupland G. Photoreceptor regulation of CONSTANS protein in photoperiodic flowering. Science. 2004;303:1003–6.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Pandya R. Mobile and Personal Communication Services and Systems. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2005.

An edited book

1. Daněk M. UTLEON3: Exploring Fine-Grain Multi-Threading in FPGAs. Kafka L, Kohout L, Sýkora J, Bartosinski R, editors. New York, NY: Springer; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Jirsa VK, Ghosh A. Spontaneous brain dynamics emerges at the edge of instability. In: Steyn-Ross DA, Steyn-Ross M, editors. Modeling Phase Transitions in the Brain. New York, NY: Springer; 2010. p. 81–98.

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 Forensic Science, Medicine, and Pathology.

Blog post

1. Luntz S. Confirmation of Human Neanderthal Interbreeding [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2014 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/confirmation-human-neanderthal-interbreeding/

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

1. Government Accountability Office. Support for Development of Electronics and Materials Technologies by the Governments of the United States, Japan, West Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1985 Sep. Report No.: RCED-85-63.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Hsu Y-T. Input and Uptake in High School EFL Students’ Multiple-Draft Writing Process: A Case Study of a Taiwanese High School EFL Classroom [Doctoral dissertation]. [Bloomington, IN]: Indiana University; 2017.

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

1. Shear MD, Vogel KP. Seat at Le Cirque, and a Word With Trump, for $250,000. New York Times. 2017 Sep 26;A20.

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	Forensic Science, Medicine, and Pathology
Abbreviation	Forensic Sci. Med. Pathol.
ISSN (print)	1547-769X
ISSN (online)	1556-2891
Scope	General Medicine Pathology and Forensic Medicine