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

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

Kielpinski D. Quantum physics: Quantum sound waves stick together. Nature. 2015 Nov 5;527(7576):45–6.

A journal article with 2 authors

Redman CW, Sargent IL. Latest advances in understanding preeclampsia. Science. 2005 Jun 10;308(5728):1592–4.

A journal article with 3 authors

Katsanis SH, Javitt G, Hudson K. Public health. A case study of personalized medicine. Science. 2008 Apr 4;320(5872):53–4.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Jin R, Rummel A, Binz T, Brunger AT. Botulinum neurotoxin B recognizes its protein receptor with high affinity and specificity. Nature. 2006 Dec 21;444(7122):1092–5.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Cyr KS. Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010 Administration. Indianapolis, IN, USA: Wiley Publishing, Inc.; 2010.

An edited book

Liu X, editor. Dao Companion to Daoist Philosophy. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2015. VII, 569 p. 10 illus. (Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy; vol. 6).

A chapter in an edited book

Saadat M. Challenges in the Assembly of Large Aerospace Components. In: Fathi M, Holland A, Ansari F, Weber C, editors. Integrated Systems, Design and Technology 2010: Knowledge Transfer in New Technologies. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011. p. 37–46.

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 the Medical Library Association.

Blog post

Andrews R. This Is What Ancient Greek Statues Used To Look Like In Color [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/physics/this-is-what-ancient-greek-statues-used-to-look-like-in-color/

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. Flexibility Demonstration Programs: Education Needs to Better Target Program Information. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2003 Jun. Report No.: GAO-03-691.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Monteiro KR. An experimental study of corrective feedback on synchronous oral computer-mediated communication [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2012.

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

Packer G. Left Behind. New York Times. 2002 Sep 22;642.

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 the Medical Library Association
Abbreviation	J. Med. Libr. Assoc.
ISSN (print)	1536-5050
ISSN (online)	1558-9439
Scope	Health Informatics Library and Information Sciences