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

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

Krause DW. Fossil molar from a Madagascan marsupial. Nature. 2001;412(6846):497–8.

A journal article with 2 authors

Pawson T, Nash P. Assembly of cell regulatory systems through protein interaction domains. Science. 2003;300(5618):445–52.

A journal article with 3 authors

Rust MJ, Golden SS, O’Shea EK. Light-driven changes in energy metabolism directly entrain the cyanobacterial circadian oscillator. Science. 2011;331(6014):220–3.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Vignuzzi M, Stone JK, Arnold JJ, Cameron CE, Andino R. Quasispecies diversity determines pathogenesis through cooperative interactions in a viral population. Nature. 2006;439(7074):344–8.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Laster B. Professional Git®. Indianapolis, IN, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2016.

An edited book

Doling J. Demographic Change and Housing Wealth: Home-owners, Pensions and Asset-based Welfare in Europe. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

Alonso O, Gonzalez FA, Niño F, Galeano J. A Solution Concept for Artificial Immune Networks: A Coevolutionary Perspective. In: Castro LN de, Zuben FJV, Knidel H, editors. Artificial Immune Systems: 6th International Conference, ICARIS 2007, Santos, Brazil, August 26-29, 2007. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2007. p. 35–46.

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 Sciences.

Blog post

O`Callaghan J. We’ve Found Liquid Water Flowing On Mars, But We’re Not Allowed To Investigate It. IFLScience. 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/space/water-mars-all-good-news-risk-contamination-could-hamper-search-life/ (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

Government Accountability Office. Managed Care Initiatives. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1996.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Finnegan RJ. Information food webs: A quantitative inquiry using a biological food web methodology. 2010.

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

Gustines GG. Long-Lost Flag, Mystery of 9/11, Heads to Museum in Manhattan. New York Times. 2016.

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	Journal of Forensic Sciences
Abbreviation	J. Forensic Sci.
ISSN (print)	0022-1198
ISSN (online)	1556-4029
Scope	Genetics Pathology and Forensic Medicine