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

Hellemans A. Antihydrogen: through the looking glass. Nature. 2000;406(6796):556-558.

A journal article with 2 authors

Halloran ME, Longini IM Jr. Emerging, evolving, and established infectious diseases and interventions. Science. 2014;345(6202):1292-1294.

A journal article with 3 authors

Ballester GE, Sing DK, Herbert F. The signature of hot hydrogen in the atmosphere of the extrasolar planet HD 209458b. Nature. 2007;445(7127):511-514.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Li D, Zhu Y, Wang H, Ding Y. Nanoporous gold as an active low temperature catalyst toward CO oxidation in hydrogen-rich stream. Sci Rep. 2013;3:3015.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Wassenaar TM. Bacteria. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2011.

An edited book

Li Y. Behavioral Research Data Analysis with R. 1st ed. (Baron J, ed.). Springer; 2012.

A chapter in an edited book

Hamann MF, Jünemann KP. “How to Make TRUS Better”: HistoScanning-Guided Biopsies for Identification of Cancer Within the Prostate. In: Thüroff S, Chaussy CG, eds. Focal Therapy of Prostate Cancer: An Emerging Strategy for Minimally Invasive, Staged Treatment. Springer International Publishing; 2015:51-57.

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. Dutch Architects Create A Habitable Windmill That Could Power A City. IFLScience.

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. Government Civil Aircraft: Longstanding Management Problems. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1992.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Ramos CM. Is This Working? A Study on Measuring the Effectiveness of Efforts to Diversify the Theatre Management Field. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach; 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

Walsh MW. Looking for Cash, Congress Finds Some in a Corporate Pension Rule Tweak. New York Times. June 29, 2012:B3.

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

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