How to format your references using the Implementation Science citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Implementation Science. 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. Vousden KH. Apoptosis. p53 and PUMA: a deadly duo. Science. 2005;309:1685–6.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Yack JE, Fullard JH. Ultrasonic hearing in nocturnal butterflies. Nature. 2000;403:265–6.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Masle J, Gilmore SR, Farquhar GD. The ERECTA gene regulates plant transpiration efficiency in Arabidopsis. Nature. 2005;436:866–70.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Kewcharoenwong C, Rinchai D, Utispan K, Suwannasaen D, Bancroft GJ, Ato M, et al. Glibenclamide reduces pro-inflammatory cytokine production by neutrophils of diabetes patients in response to bacterial infection. Sci Rep. 2013;3:3363.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Rosier JA, Martens MA, Thomas JR. Global New Drug Development. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2014.

An edited book

1. Jelali M, Huang B, editors. Detection and Diagnosis of Stiction in Control Loops: State of the Art and Advanced Methods. London: Springer; 2010.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Bassi E, Leoni D, Leucci S, Pane J, Vaccari L. Opening Public Deliberations: Transparency, Privacy, Anonymisation. In: Casanovas P, Pagallo U, Palmirani M, Sartor G, editors. AI Approaches to the Complexity of Legal Systems: AICOL 2013 International Workshops, AICOL-IV@IVR, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, July 21-27, 2013 and AICOL-V@SINTELNET-JURIX, Bologna, Italy, December 11, 2013, Revised Selected Papers. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2014. p. 41–53.

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 Implementation Science.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. From Newton To Einstein: The Origins Of General Relativity [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/physics/newton-einstein-origins-general-relativity/

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. Race to the Top: Education Could Better Support Grantees and Help Them Address Capacity Challenges. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2015 Apr. Report No.: GAO-15-295.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Thomas LE. Youth Art Ambassadors: A Youth Participatory Action Research Project Using Social Justice to Incite Change in Classrooms where Teachers Teach Young People of Color [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: 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

1. Murphy MJO. Friday File. New York Times. 2015 Feb 27;C27.

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	Implementation Science
Abbreviation	Implement. Sci.
ISSN (online)	1748-5908
Scope	General Medicine Health Informatics Health Policy Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health