How to format your references using the Journal of Medical Case Reports citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Medical Case Reports. 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

1. Smetacek V. Microbial food webs. The ocean’s veil. Nature. 2002;419:565.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Stern SA, Weissman PR. Rapid collisional evolution of comets during the formation of the Oort cloud. Nature. 2001;409:589–91.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Kennedy S, Wang D, Ruvkun G. A conserved siRNA-degrading RNase negatively regulates RNA interference in C. elegans. Nature. 2004;427:645–9.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Venkataraman L, Klare JE, Nuckolls C, Hybertsen MS, Steigerwald ML. Dependence of single-molecule junction conductance on molecular conformation. Nature. 2006;442:904–7.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Bajorski P. Statistics for Imaging, Optics, and Photonics: Bajorski/Statistics for Imaging. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2011.

An edited book

1. Hendricks VF, Jørgensen KF, Lützen J, Pedersen SA, editors. Interactions: Mathematics, Physics and Philosophy, 1860–1930. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2006.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Guillaume F, Schoutens W. Bid-Ask Spread for Exotic Options under Conic Finance. In: Glau K, Scherer M, Zagst R, editors. Innovations in Quantitative Risk Management: TU München, September 2013. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015. p. 59–74.

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 Medical Case Reports.

Blog post

1. Davis J. Mystery Disease Driving Turtles To Extinction [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/mystery-disease-driving-turtles-extinction-waiting-turtle-photo/

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. Schools and Libraries Corporation: Actions Needed to Strengthen Program Integrity Operations Before Committing Funds. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1998 Jul. Report No.: T-RCED-98-243.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Rieger K. Phenomenological Exploration of the Characteristics of Successful Women Entrepreneurs [Doctoral dissertation]. [Scottsdale, AZ]: Northcentral University; 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. Bohlen C. Ancient Georgian Culture, Set to Music. New York Times. 2017 Jun 20;TR1.

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 Medical Case Reports
Abbreviation	J. Med. Case Rep.
ISSN (online)	1752-1947
Scope	General Medicine