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

Socha JJ. Gliding flight in the paradise tree snake. Nature 2002 Aug 8;418(6898):603–604. PMID:12167849

A journal article with 2 authors

Pitaevskii L, Stringari S. Ultracold matter. The quest for superfluidity in Fermi gases. Science 2002 Dec 13;298(5601):2144–2146. PMID:12481125

A journal article with 3 authors

Barber VA, Juday GP, Finney BP. Reduced growth of Alaskan white spruce in the twentieth century from temperature-induced drought stress. Nature 2000 Jun 8;405(6787):668–673. PMID:10864320

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Nguyen VD, Torres WS, Laczkowski P, Marty A, Jamet M, Beigné C, Notin L, Vila L, Attané JP. Elementary depinning processes of magnetic domain walls under fields and currents. Sci Rep 2014 Oct 1;4:6509. PMID:25270773

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Zepernick H-J, Finger A. Pseudo Random Signal Processing. West Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons Ltd,.; 2005. ISBN:9780470866597

An edited book

Kemmis S. The Action Research Planner: Doing Critical Participatory Action Research. McTaggart R, Nixon R, editors. Singapore: Springer; 2014. ISBN:9789814560665

A chapter in an edited book

Onorato EM, Casilli F, Anzola GP. Echocardiographic Detection and Transcranial Doppler Quantification of Right-to-Left Shunting. In: Amin Z, Tobis JM, Sievert H, Carroll JD, editors. Patent Foramen Ovale London: Springer; 2015. p. 33–47. ISBN:9781447149866

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

Carpineti C. Check Out This Mesmerizing Spanish Dancer Sea Slug. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2017. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/check-out-this-mesmerizing-spanish-dancer-sea-slug/ [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. Use of Department of Education Title III Grant Funds by the International Institute of the Americas of World University. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1984 Apr. Report No.: HRD-84-20.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Perlstein JA. Support for families affected by incarceration: A grant proposal [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2014.

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

Joy S. Dare to Be Daring. New York Times 2016 Nov 30;D13.

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