How to format your references using the Hong Kong Medical Journal citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Hong Kong Medical Journal. 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

Willyard C. Lifestyle: Breaking the cancer habit. Nature. 2011;471(7339):S16-7.

A journal article with 2 authors

Geschwind DH, Flint J. Genetics and genomics of psychiatric disease. Science. 2015;349(6255):1489-1494.

A journal article with 3 authors

West GB, Brown JH, Enquist BJ. A general model for ontogenetic growth. Nature. 2001;413(6856):628-631.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Baudat F, Buard J, Grey C, et al. PRDM9 is a major determinant of meiotic recombination hotspots in humans and mice. Science. 2010;327(5967):836-840.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Plumb JA, Hanson LA. Health Maintenance and Principal Microbial Diseases of Cultured Fishes. Wiley-Blackwell; 2010.

An edited book

Sergi A. ’Ndrangheta: The Glocal Dimensions of the Most Powerful Italian Mafia. (Lavorgna A, ed.). Springer International Publishing; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

Keshtkar F, Burkett C, Li H, Graesser AC. Using Data Mining Techniques to Detect the Personality of Players in an Educational Game. In: Peña-Ayala A, ed. Educational Data Mining: Applications and Trends. Studies in Computational Intelligence. Springer International Publishing; 2014:125-150.

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 Hong Kong Medical Journal.

Blog post

Fang J. Bonobo Tool Use Resembles that of Our Early Stone Age Ancestors. IFLScience. July 8, 2015. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/bonobo-tool-use-resembles-our-early-stone-age-ancestors/

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. Integration of Current Implementation Efforts with Long-Term Planning for the Next Generation Air Transportation System. U.S. Government Printing Office; 2010.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Chan K. Planned Experiences Compared to Performance Standards for Entry-Level Dietetic Interns. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach; 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

Williams J. Stranger Than Reality? New York Times. February 24, 2017:BR4.

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	Hong Kong Medical Journal
Abbreviation	Hong Kong Med. J.
ISSN (print)	1024-2708
Scope	General Medicine