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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR). 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

Keszthelyi LP. Planetary science: Europa awakening. Nature 2011 Nov 16;479(7374):485. PMID:22089137

A journal article with 2 authors

Mori M, Umemura M. The evolution of galaxies from primeval irregulars to present-day ellipticals. Nature 2006 Mar 30;440(7084):644–647. PMID:16572164

A journal article with 3 authors

Chisari FV, Mason WS, Seeger C. Virology. Comment on “Specific and nonhepatotoxic degradation of nuclear hepatitis B virus cccDNA.” Science 2014 Jun 13;344(6189):1237. PMID:24926010

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Paik DH, Lee I-R, Yang D-S, Baskin JS, Zewail AH. Electrons in finite-sized water cavities: hydration dynamics observed in real time. Science 2004 Oct 22;306(5696):672–675. PMID:15375221

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Matloff R, Chaillou JH. Nonprofit Investment and Development Solutions. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2013. ISBN:9781118650837

An edited book

Liu B, Ma M, Chang J, editors. Information Computing and Applications: Third International Conference, ICICA 2012, Chengde, China, September 14-16, 2012. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2012. ISBN:9783642340611

A chapter in an edited book

Braibant S, Giacomelli G, Spurio M. Il paradigma delle interazioni: Il caso elettromagnetico. In: Giacomelli G, Spurio M, editors. Particelle e interazioni fondamentali: Il mondo delle particelle Milano: Springer; 2012. p. 77–105. ISBN:9788847027534

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 Internet Research.

Blog post

Andrew E. New Data Suggests Global Ocean Warming Rates May Have Been Severely Underestimated. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2014. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/new-data-suggests-global-ocean-warming-rates-have-been-severely-underestimated/ [accessed Oct 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. Student Financial Aid: Data Not Fully Utilized to Identify Inappropriately Awarded Loans and Grants. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1995 Jul. Report No.: T-HEHS-95-199.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Bishop S. The impact of attachment and social support on parents of children with autism [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2015.

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

Marx L. A Romance With Lemon Juice and Two Beach Towels. New York Times 2014 Mar 30;ST20.

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 Internet Research
Abbreviation	J. Med. Internet Res.
ISSN (print)	1439-4456
ISSN (online)	1438-8871
Scope	Health Informatics