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

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

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
Hemingway J. Taking aim at mosquitoes. Nature 2004;430:936.
A journal article with 2 authors
1
Gandhi CS, Rees DC. Biochemistry. Opening the molecular floodgates. Science 2008;321:1166–7.
A journal article with 3 authors
1
Oliveira EA, Andrade JS Jr, Makse HA. Large cities are less green. Sci Rep 2014;4:4235.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
1
Yang Y, Fu Z, Su Y, et al. A cytosolic glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase gene, ScG6PDH, plays a positive role in response to various abiotic stresses in sugarcane. Sci Rep 2014;4:7090.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1
Abner DJ. The ETF Handbook. Hoboken, NJ: : John Wiley &;#38; Sons, Inc. 2016.
An edited book
1
Davies J. The Definitive Guide to SOA: BEA AquaLogic® Service Bus. Berkeley, CA: : Apress 2007.
A chapter in an edited book
1
Ross C. Innovating Means of Payment in Chile, 1840s–1860. In: Batiz-Lazo B, Efthymiou L, eds. The Book of Payments: Historical and Contemporary Views on the Cashless Society. London: : Palgrave Macmillan UK 2016. 33–42.

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 Ethics.

Blog post
1
Andrew E. Fish Can Make Their Own Sunscreen. IFLScience. 2015.

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. Homeland Security: Progress Made to Implement IT Reform, but Additional Chief Information Officer Involvement Needed. Washington, DC: : U.S. Government Printing Office 2017.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1
Perkins J. ‘Inside of each story was a piece of my story’: Applied folklore addressing stigma around perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. 2017.

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
Greenhouse L. Roberts Dissent Reveals Strain Beneath Court’s Placid Surface. New York Times. 2006;:A1.

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 titleJournal of Medical Ethics
AbbreviationJ. Med. Ethics
ISSN (print)0306-6800
ISSN (online)1473-4257
ScopeArts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
Health Policy
Issues, ethics and legal aspects
Health(social science)

Other styles