How to format your references using the Indian Journal of Medical Sciences citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Indian Journal of Medical Sciences. 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

Potenza M. Perspective: Behavioural addictions matter. Nature 2015;522(7557):S62.

A journal article with 2 authors

Lau W, Sattely ES. Six enzymes from mayapple that complete the biosynthetic pathway to the etoposide aglycone. Science 2015;349(6253):1224–8.

A journal article with 3 authors

Reich DS, Mechler F, Victor JD. Independent and redundant information in nearby cortical neurons. Science 2001;294(5551):2566–8.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Spitzer D, Risse B, Schnell F, Pichot V, Klaumünzer M, Schaefer MR. Continuous engineering of nano-cocrystals for medical and energetic applications. Sci Rep 2014;4:6575.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Fingerloos F, Hegger J, Zilch K. EUROCODE 2 für Deutschland. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2016.

An edited book

Kampen WU, Fischer M, editors. Local Treatment of Inflammatory Joint Diseases: Benefits and Risks. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

Sourtzinos P, Makris D, Remagnino P. Highly Accurate Estimation of Pedestrian Speed Profiles from Video Sequences. In: Remagnino P, Monekosso DN, Jain LC, editors. Innovations in Defence Support Systems – 3: Intelligent Paradigms in Security. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011. page 71–81.

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 Indian Journal of Medical Sciences.

Blog post

Andrew E. Scientists Discover How Mantis Shrimp Claws Balance Form And Function [Internet]. IFLScience2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30];Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/scientists-discover-how-mantis-shrimp-claws-balance-form-and-functio/

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. Year 2000 Computing Challenge: Readiness of USDA High-Impact Programs Improving, But More Action Is Needed. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1999.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Grether S. All You Need is Love? An Examination of Interracial Divorce. 2012;

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

Wagner J. Mets Evaluate Their Options at First Base After Duda Is Sidelined by Hip Stiffness. New York Times2017;SP3.

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	Indian Journal of Medical Sciences
Abbreviation	Indian J. Med. Sci.
ISSN (print)	0019-5359
ISSN (online)	1998-3654
Scope	General Medicine