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

Levinson SC. Psychology. Kinship and human thought. Science. 2012 May 25;336(6084):988–9.

A journal article with 2 authors

Jansen VAA, van Baalen M. Altruism through beard chromodynamics. Nature. 2006 Mar 30;440(7084):663–6.

A journal article with 3 authors

Discher DE, Janmey P, Wang YL. Tissue cells feel and respond to the stiffness of their substrate. Science. 2005 Nov 18;310(5751):1139–43.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Robert T, Vanoli F, Chiolo I, Shubassi G, Bernstein KA, Rothstein R, et al. HDACs link the DNA damage response, processing of double-strand breaks and autophagy. Nature. 2011 Mar 3;471(7336):74–9.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kramer H. Angewandte Baudynamik. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2013.

An edited book

Hall GB, Leahy MG, editors. Open Source Approaches in Spatial Data Handling. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2008. XIV, 278 p. 126 illus., 29 illus. in color. (Advances in Geographic Information Science; vol. 2).

A chapter in an edited book

Guerraggio A, Paoloni G. Rome, Public Appointments, the Politician. In: Paoloni G, editor. Vito Volterra. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013. p. 47–75.

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

Andrew E. Watch The European Space Agency Land A Spacecraft On A Comet [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2014 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/space/rosetta-s-philae-prepares-land-comet-67pchuryumov-gerasimenko/

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. Federal Research and Development: Contributions to and Results of the Small Business Technology Transfer Program. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2001 Jun. Report No.: GAO-01-766R.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Rivas VE. Art appreciation program for homeless children: A grant proposal project [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

Feeney K. After a Fire, A Fishery Is Restocked. New York Times. 2007 Jul 22;NJ6.

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

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