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

Hardt WD. Antibiotics: Homed to the hideout. Nature. 2015;527(7578):309-310.

A journal article with 2 authors

Colburn KA, Johnson PRS. Public health. Air pollution concerns not changed by S-PLUS flaw. Science. 2003;299(5607):665-666.

A journal article with 3 authors

Wookey J, Kendall JM, Barruol G. Mid-mantle deformation inferred from seismic anisotropy. Nature. 2002;415(6873):777-780.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Macgregor S, Visscher PM, Knott S, et al. Is schizophrenia linked to chromosome 1q? Science. 2002;298(5602):2277; author reply 2277.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Piegorsch WW, Bailer AJ. Analyzing Environmental Data. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2005.

An edited book

Nakatsu R, Tosa N, Naghdy F, Wong KW, Codognet P, eds. Cultural Computing: Second IFIP TC 14 Entertainment Computing Symposium, ECS 2010, Held as Part of WCC 2010, Brisbane, Australia, September 20-23, 2010. Proceedings. Vol 333. Springer; 2010.

A chapter in an edited book

Zhu Y, Lan H, Ness DA, et al. Alternative Energy Development in Rural Chinese Communities. In: Lan H, Ness DA, Xing K, Schneider K, Lee SH, Ge J, eds. Transforming Rural Communities in China and Beyond: Community Entrepreneurship and Enterprises, Infrastructure Development and Investment Modes. Springer International Publishing; 2015:93-116.

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

Andrew E. Fish With Human-Like Teeth Found in Jersey Lake. IFLScience. June 26, 2015. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/amazonian-nutcracker-fish-human-teeth-found-jersey-lake/

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. [Comments on Customs Commissioner’s Alleged Unauthorized Use of Government Automobiles]. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1987.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Morton WG. Isolating Mycorrhizal Fungi from Spiranthes Vernalis for Subsequent in Vitro Seed Germination. Doctoral dissertation. Southern Illinois University; 2015.

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

Feeney K. Sublime Indian Sweets. New York Times. January 14, 2007:NJ9.

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