How to format your references using the Medical Education citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Medical Education. 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

Hovers E. Archaeology: Tools go back in time. Nature. 2015 May 21;521(7552):294–5.

A journal article with 2 authors

Brown LS, Lankford WF. Sustainability: Clean cooking empowers women. Nature. 2015 May 21;521(7552):284–5.

A journal article with 3 authors

Renvall V, Nangini C, Hari R. All that glitters is not BOLD: inconsistencies in functional MRI. Sci Rep. 2014 Jan 29;4:3920.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Tang CS, Xia B, Zou X, Chen S, Ou HW, Wang L, et al. Terahertz conductivity of topological surface states in Bi₁.₅Sb₀.₅Te₁.₈Se₁.₂. Sci Rep. 2013 Dec 17;3:3513.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Russell LCR, Hodgetts CTJ, Mahoney CPF, Castle N. Disaster Rules. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell; 2010.

An edited book

Namatame A, Kaizouji T, Aruka Y, editors. The Complex Networks of Economic Interactions: Essays in Agent-Based Economics and Econophysics. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2006. XI, 347 p. (Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems; vol. 567).

A chapter in an edited book

Bauer L, Henkel J. RISPP Architecture Details. In: Henkel J, editor. Run-time Adaptation for Reconfigurable Embedded Processors. New York, NY: Springer; 2011. p. 125–63.

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 Medical Education.

Blog post

Luntz S. Crop Records Reveal Madagascar And Comoros Were Settled From Southeast Asia [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/madagascar-and-comoros-settled-south-east-asia/

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. Social Security Administration: Additional Actions Needed in Ongoing Efforts to Improve 800-Number Service. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2005 Aug. Report No.: GAO-05-735.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Lapizco-Encinas GC. Cooperative particle swarm optimization for combinatorial problems [Doctoral dissertation]. [College Park, MD]: University of Maryland, College Park; 2009.

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

Hollander S. Syracuse and Princeton Survive to Reach Final. New York Times. 2000 May 28;88.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

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	Medical Education
Abbreviation	Med. Educ.
ISSN (print)	0308-0110
ISSN (online)	1365-2923
Scope	General Medicine Education