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. Penrose O. An asymmetric world. Nature. 2005;438:919.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Szule JA, Coorssen JR. Comment on “Transmembrane segments of syntaxin line the fusion pore of Ca2+-triggered exocytosis.” Science. 2004;306:813; author reply 813.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Thakur G, Prashanthi K, Thundat T. Directed self-assembly of proteins into discrete radial patterns. Sci Rep. 2013;3:1923.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Iwai M, Pack C-G, Takenaka Y, Sako Y, Nakano A. Photosystem II antenna phosphorylation-dependent protein diffusion determined by fluorescence correlation spectroscopy. Sci Rep. 2013;3:2833.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Voit B, Haag R, Appelhans D, Welzel PB. Bio- and Multifunctional Polymer Architectures. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc; 2016.

An edited book

1. Lippens P-E, Jumas J-C, Génin J-MR, editors. ICAME 2005: Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on the Applications of the Mössbauer Effect (ICAME 2005) held in Montpellier, France, 4–9 September 2005, Volume I (Part I–II/V). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2007.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Angehrn E. Verstehendes Leben. In: Breeur R, Melle U, editors. Life, Subjectivity & Art: Essays in Honor of Rudolf Bernet. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2012. p. 123–43.

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. Taub B. New Research Shows How The Iron Curtain Blocked The Spread Of HIV To The East [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/new-research-shows-how-the-iron-curtain-blocked-the-spread-of-hiv-to-the-east/

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. Issues Related to FAA’s Modernization of the Air Traffic Control System. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1990 Feb. Report No.: T-RCED-90-32.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Al-Qazzaz AL. A kinetic study of the radiolytic degradation of phthalates in aqueous solutions [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 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

1. Saslow L. A Virus Endangers Trout at Big Hatchery. New York Times. 2007 Feb 18;14LI2.

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

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