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. Smaglik P. Talent tug-of-war. Nature. 2002;417:3.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Buschman TJ, Miller EK. Top-down versus bottom-up control of attention in the prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices. Science. 2007;315:1860–2.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Körtner G, Brigham RM, Geiser F. Winter torpor in a large bird. Nature. 2000;407:318.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Korb J, Weil T, Hoffmann K, Foster KR, Rehli M. A gene necessary for reproductive suppression in termites. Science. 2009;324:758.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Hezaveh A. SAS® 9 Study Guide. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2007.

An edited book

1. Hüllermeier E, Link S, Fober T, Seeger B, editors. Scalable Uncertainty Management: 6th International Conference, SUM 2012, Marburg, Germany, September 17-19, 2012. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2012.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Chen D-G, Chen X, Lin F. Solving Probabilistic Discrete Event Systems with Moore–Penrose Generalized Inverse Matrix Method to Extract Longitudinal Characteristics from Cross-Sectional Survey Data. In: Chen D-G (din), Wilson J, editors. Innovative Statistical Methods for Public Health Data. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015. p. 81–94.

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. Andrew E. Why Can’t You Tickle Yourself? [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/why-we-can-t-tickle-ourselves/

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. Year 2000 Computing Crisis: The District of Columbia Faces Tremendous Challenges in Ensuring Vital Services Are Not Disrupted. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1998 Oct. Report No.: T-AIMD-99-4.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Warren PD. Characterizing polymers for cardiovascular devices [Doctoral dissertation]. [Tucson, AZ]: University of Arizona; 2012.

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. Brantley B. Returning to Broadway on Heavier Wings. New York Times. 2017 Oct 27;C1.

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

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