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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
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
1. Marcus PS. Prediction of a global climate change on Jupiter. Nature. 2004;428:828–31.
A journal article with 2 authors
1. Monroe C, Kim J. Scaling the ion trap quantum processor. Science. 2013;339:1164–9.
A journal article with 3 authors
1. Cohen JC, Horton JD, Hobbs HH. Human fatty liver disease: old questions and new insights. Science. 2011;332:1519–23.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
1. Yu Y, Mai J, Wang L, Li X, Jiang Z, Wang F. Ship-in-a-bottle synthesis of amine-functionalized ionic liquids in NaY zeolite for CO2 capture. Sci Rep. 2014;4:5997.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1. Welsh AH. Aspects of Statistical Inference: Welsh/Aspects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 1996.
An edited book
1. Reniers G. Using Game Theory to Improve Safety within Chemical Industrial Parks. Pavlova Y, editor. London: Springer; 2013.
A chapter in an edited book
1. Barakat RR. Criteria for Using Intraperitoneal (IP) Chemotherapy for Advanced Ovarian Cancer. In: Alberts DS, Clouser MC, Hess LM, editors. Intraperitoneal Therapy for Ovarian Cancer. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2010. p. 51–8.

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. Not all GMO Plants Are Created Equally: It’s The Trait, Not The Method, That’s Important. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015.

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. A-10 Close Air Support Aircraft. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1974 Mar. Report No.: 093514.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1. Valenzuela J. Medicare advantage’s population make-up and its impact on the future of Medicare financing [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2014.

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. Kishkovsky S. A Rock Telethon in Russia, Echoing the Mood of 9/11. New York Times. 2004 Sep 9;A8.

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 titleImplementation Science
AbbreviationImplement. Sci.
ISSN (online)1748-5908
ScopeGeneral Medicine
Health Informatics
Health Policy
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

Other styles