How to format your references using the Human Genetics citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Human Genetics. 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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
Squire LR (2007) Neuroscience. Rapid consolidation. Science 316:57–58
A journal article with 2 authors
Scholes RJ, Noble IR (2001) Climate change. Storing carbon on land. Science 294:1012–1013
A journal article with 3 authors
Li J, Sato T, Kageyama A (2002) Repeated and sudden reversals of the dipole field generated by a spherical dynamo action. Science 295:1887–1890
A journal article with 5 or more authors
Ma L-S, Bi Z, Bartels A, et al (2004) Optical frequency synthesis and comparison with uncertainty at the 10(-19) level. Science 303:1843–1845

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Askoolum A (2007) System Building with APL + Win. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK
An edited book
Hanaki K (ed) (2008) Urban Environmental Management and Technology. Springer Japan, Tokyo
A chapter in an edited book
Khanna N, Raleiras P, Lindblad P (2016) Fundamentals and Recent Advances in Hydrogen Production and Nitrogen Fixation in Cyanobacteria. In: Borowitzka MA, Beardall J, Raven JA (eds) The Physiology of Microalgae. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 101–127

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 Human Genetics.

Blog post
Andrew E (2015) Diamond Lasers 20 Times More Powerful Than Ever Before. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/technology/diamond-lasers-20-times-more-powerful-ever/. Accessed 30 Oct 2018

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 (2012) Highway Safety: Federal and State Efforts Related to Accidents That Involve Non-Commercial Vehicles Carrying Unsecured Loads. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
Zhang G (2010) Roles of serotonin 2A receptor in a serotonin syndrome. Doctoral dissertation, Florida Atlantic University

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
Greenhouse L (2006) Justices Express Concern Over Aspects of Some Texas Redistricting. New York Times A24

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Squire 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Scholes and Noble 2001; Squire 2007).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

  • Two authors: (Scholes and Noble 2001)
  • Three or more authors: (Ma et al. 2004)

About the journal

Full journal titleHuman Genetics
AbbreviationHum. Genet.
ISSN (print)0340-6717
ISSN (online)1432-1203
ScopeGenetics
Genetics(clinical)

Other styles