How to format your references using the Journal of Clinical Microbiology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Clinical Microbiology (JCM). 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	Download the output style file
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

Sohn E. 2015. Screening: Don’t look now. Nature 527:S118-9.

A journal article with 2 authors

Czakó G, Bowman JM. 2011. Dynamics of the reaction of methane with chlorine atom on an accurate potential energy surface. Science 334:343–346.

A journal article with 3 authors

Balser DS, Rood RT, Bania TM. 2007. Comment on “Deep mixing of 3He: reconciling Big Bang and stellar nucleosynthesis.” Science 317:1170.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Beck RD, Maroni P, Papageorgopoulos DC, Dang TT, Schmid MP, Rizzo TR. 2003. Vibrational mode-specific reaction of methane on a nickel surface. Science 302:98–100.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

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

An edited book

2007. Endoscopic Extraperitoneal Radical Prostatectomy. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

Khalaf K, Vidojkovic V, Wambacq P, Long JR. 2015. Top-Level Design, p. 83–93. In Vidojkovic, V, Wambacq, P, Long, JR (eds.), Data Transmission at Millimeter Waves: Exploiting the 60 GHz Band on Silicon. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

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 Journal of Clinical Microbiology.

Blog post

O`Callaghan J. 2015. Missions To Study Atmosphere Of Venus And A “Failed Planet” Among New NASA Proposals. IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/missions-study-atmosphere-venus-and-failed-planet-among-new-nasa-proposals/. Retrieved 30 October 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

Government Accountability Office. 1979. Developing a Domestic Common Carrier Telecommunications Policy: What Are the Issues? CED-79-18. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Smith JA. 2010. Functional analysis of ESAT-6 and EspB, two virulence proteins secreted by the ESX-1 system in Mycobacterium marinum. Doctoral dissertation. University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD.

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

James S. 2017. Losing a Fortune. New York Times.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in parentheses:

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	Journal of Clinical Microbiology
Abbreviation	J. Clin. Microbiol.
ISSN (print)	0095-1137
ISSN (online)	1098-660X
Scope	Microbiology (medical)

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