How to format your references using the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine. 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

Lewis SL. We must set planetary boundaries wisely. Nature. 2012;485(7399):417.

A journal article with 2 authors

Best RB, Hummer G. Biochemistry. Unfolding the secrets of calmodulin. Science. 2009;323(5914):593-594.

A journal article with 3 authors

Ogawa Y, Sun BK, Lee JT. Intersection of the RNA interference and X-inactivation pathways. Science. 2008;320(5881):1336-1341.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Kramer G, Rauch T, Rist W, et al. L23 protein functions as a chaperone docking site on the ribosome. Nature. 2002;419(6903):171-174.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Held G. Virtual Private Networking. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2005.

An edited book

Gelenbe E, Lent R, eds. Computer and Information Sciences III: 27th International Symposium on Computer and Information Sciences. Springer; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

Ronconi D. Anatomical Illustration of the Abdominal Wall and Fat. In: Di Giuseppe A, Shiffman MA, eds. Aesthetic Plastic Surgery of the Abdomen. Springer International Publishing; 2016:41-44.

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 Forensic and Legal Medicine.

Blog post

Luntz S. All Of Feynman’s Lectures Now Available Online Completely Free. IFLScience. September 1, 2014. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/physics/all-feynman’s-lectures-now-available-online-completely-free/

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. Aviation Security: Federal Air Marshal Service Could Benefit from Improved Planning and Controls. U.S. Government Printing Office; 2005.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Meluzzi D. Computational Analysis of DNA Interactions to Investigate the Spatial Organization of Chromatin. Doctoral dissertation. University of California San Diego; 2013.

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

St. John Kelly E. PLAYING IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD. New York Times. December 19, 1993:1315.

In-text citations

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

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 Forensic and Legal Medicine
Abbreviation	J. Forensic Leg. Med.
ISSN (print)	1752-928X
Scope	General Medicine Pathology and Forensic Medicine Law