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]

Yamamoto A. Crowded universities cramp more than just students’ style. Nature 2000;404:13.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Green DJ, Alemseged Z. Australopithecus afarensis scapular ontogeny, function, and the role of climbing in human evolution. Science 2012;338:514–7.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Moeller S, Freiwald WA, Tsao DY. Patches with links: a unified system for processing faces in the macaque temporal lobe. Science 2008;320:1355–9.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

McCulloch SD, Kokoska RJ, Masutani C, Iwai S, Hanaoka F, Kunkel TA. Preferential cis-syn thymine dimer bypass by DNA polymerase eta occurs with biased fidelity. Nature 2004;428:97–100.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Pardoe I. Applied Regression Modeling. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2006.

An edited book

[1]

Corchado E, Kurzyński M, Woźniak M, editors. Hybrid Artificial Intelligent Systems: 6th International Conference, HAIS 2011, Wroclaw, Poland, May 23-25, 2011, Proceedings, Part II. vol. 6679. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Madea B, Noeker M, Franke I. Child abuse — some aspects for neurosurgeons. In: Pickard JD, Akalan N, Benes V, Rocco CD, Dolenc VV, Antunes JL, et al., editors. Advances and Technical Standards in Neurosurgery, Vienna: Springer; 2011, p. 79–135.

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. Little Hedgehog Who Lost His Spikes Being Kept Cozy Until They Grow Back. IFLScience 2014.

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. The Cost Effectiveness of an Education Assistance Program (GI Bill) as a Recruiting Incentive Is Unknown. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1982.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Vail AS. The gift of noetic image: Spontaneous imagery and psychological well-being in women with breast cancer. Doctoral dissertation. Pacifica Graduate Institute, 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

[1]

Billard M. Out of Character, but in His Element. New York Times 2013:E7.

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