How to format your references using the International Journal of Nursing Sciences citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for International Journal of Nursing 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

[1]

Mayr E. Happy birthday: 80 years of watching the evolutionary scenery. Science 2004;305:46–7.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Reverter D, Lima CD. Insights into E3 ligase activity revealed by a SUMO-RanGAP1-Ubc9-Nup358 complex. Nature 2005;435:687–92.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Komatsu T, Sekiya T, Nagata K. DNA replication-dependent binding of CTCF plays a critical role in adenovirus genome functions. Sci Rep 2013;3:2187.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Harris KD, Csicsvari J, Hirase H, Dragoi G, Buzsáki G. Organization of cell assemblies in the hippocampus. Nature 2003;424:552–6.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Johnson Jr. MD WH, Moller MD JH. Pediatric Cardiology. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2014.

An edited book

[1]

Brun L, Vento M, editors. Graph-Based Representations in Pattern Recognition: 5th IAPR International Workshop, GbRPR 2005, Poitiers, France, April 11-13, 2005. Proceedings. vol. 3434. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2005.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Caflisch L. Maritime Delimitation Disputes — What Modes of Settlement? In: Basedow J, Magnus U, Wolfrum R, editors. The Hamburg Lectures on Maritime Affairs 2009 & 2010, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2012, p. 69–87.

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 International Journal of Nursing Sciences.

Blog post

[1]

Andrew E. Two Most Destructive Termite Species Could Be Creating “Super” Hybrids. IFLScience 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/two-most-destructive-termite-species-could-be-creating-super-hybrids-florida/ (accessed October 30, 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

[1]

Government Accountability Office. Opportunities for Improving Cash Management Practices, Regional Finance and Data Processing Center, Paris, France. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1972.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Villanueva R. Issues of performance practice: The influence of Franz Strauss upon Richard Strauss’s Horn Concerto No. 1. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach, 2015.

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]

Koblin J. Emmys Seek Ratings Winner. New York Times 2016:C1.

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	International Journal of Nursing Sciences
Abbreviation	Int. J. Nurs. Sci.
ISSN (print)	2352-0132
Scope	General Nursing