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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Traditional Chinese 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

[1]

Russell TP. Materials science. Polymers find plenty of wiggle room at the bottom. Science 2013;341:1351–2.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Lu M, Fu D. Structure of the zinc transporter YiiP. Science 2007;317:1746–8.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Amari T, Canou A, Aly J-J. Characterizing and predicting the magnetic environment leading to solar eruptions. Nature 2014;514:465–9.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Davies B, King A, Newman P, Minett A, Dunstan CR, Zreiqat H. Hypothesis: bones toughness arises from the suppression of elastic waves. Sci Rep 2014;4:7538.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Chang CM. Service Systems Management and Engineering. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2010.

An edited book

[1]

Abrahamsen P, Hauge R, Kolbjørnsen O, editors. Geostatistics Oslo 2012. vol. 17. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2012.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Deconinck G, Vanthournout K, Beitollahi H, Qui Z, Duan R, Nauwelaers B, et al. A Robust Semantic Overlay Network for Microgrid Control Applications. In: Lemos R de, Giandomenico FD, Gacek C, Muccini H, Vieira M, editors. Architecting Dependable Systems V, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2008, p. 101–23.

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 Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Blog post

[1]

Hale T. Bizarre Photo Appears To Show Snake EATING Its Way Out Of Another Snake. IFLScience 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/crazy-photo-appears-show-snake-eating-its-way-out-another-snake0/ (accessed October 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

[1]

Government Accountability Office. Survey of the Readiness of Minuteman Missiles. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1980.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Grzeda S. Use of Binomial Cluster Analysis in the Identification of Temporary Disaster Debris Management Sites. Doctoral dissertation. George Washington University, 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

[1]

Atlas J. Headed for the Graveyard of Books. New York Times 2017:BR21.

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 Traditional Chinese Medicine
ISSN (print)	0254-6272
Scope	General Medicine