How to format your references using the Journal of Postgraduate Medicine citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Postgraduate Medicine. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Smaglik P. Central stations. Nature 2005;433(7024):439.

A journal article with 2 authors

Macquaker JHS, Bohacs KM. Geology. On the accumulation of mud. Science 2007;318(5857):1734–5.

A journal article with 3 authors

Li J, Sato T, Kageyama A. Repeated and sudden reversals of the dipole field generated by a spherical dynamo action. Science 2002;295(5561):1887–90.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Aihara I, Mizumoto T, Otsuka T, Awano H, Nagira K, Okuno HG, et al. Spatio-temporal dynamics in collective frog choruses examined by mathematical modeling and field observations. Sci Rep 2014;4:3891.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Qu D. Manufacturing and Managing Customer-Driven Derivatives. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2016.

An edited book

Memmi G, Blanke U, editors. Mobile Computing, Applications, and Services: 5th International Conference, MobiCASE 2013, Paris, France, November 7-8, 2013, Revised Selected Papers. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

Zoric J. Connecting Business Models with Service Platform Designs – Quantitative, Scenario-Based Framework. In: Hesselman C, Giannelli C, editors. Mobile Wireless Middleware, Operating Systems, and Applications - Workshops: Mobilware 2009 Workshops, Berlin, Germany, April 2009, Revised Selected Papers. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009. page 33–44.

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 Postgraduate Medicine.

Blog post

Fang J. Hitchcock Flick Elicits Response in Brain-Injured Patient [Internet]. IFLScience2014 [cited 2018 Oct 30];Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/brain/hitchcock-flick-elicits-response-brain-injured-patient/

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. Information Technology: Executive office for U.S. Attorneys Needs to Institutionalize Key IT Management Disciplines. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2003.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Ledgister NL. A study of transformational leadership and job satisfaction among leaders in Jamaica Baptist Union churches. 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

Kishkovsky S. Dmitri Prigov, 66, Poet Who Challenged Soviet Authority. New York Times2007;A21.

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 Postgraduate Medicine
Abbreviation	J. Postgrad. Med.
ISSN (print)	0022-3859
ISSN (online)	0972-2823
Scope	General Medicine