How to format your references using the Medical Humanities citation style

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

Binder P-M. Physics. Reflections on a wall of light. Science. 2008;322:1334–5.

A journal article with 2 authors

Peacock E, Garshelis DL. Comment on ‘On the regulation of populations of mammals, birds, fish, and insects’ IV. Science. 2006;313:45; author reply 45.

A journal article with 3 authors

Lutzoni F, Pagel M, Reeb V. Major fungal lineages are derived from lichen symbiotic ancestors. Nature. 2001;411:937–40.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Aanen DK, de Fine Licht HH, Debets AJM, et al. High symbiont relatedness stabilizes mutualistic cooperation in fungus-growing termites. Science. 2009;326:1103–6.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Dvorak R, Lhotka C. Celestial Dynamics. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA 2013.

An edited book

Mazzola G. Musical Creativity: Strategies and Tools in Composition and Improvisation. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

Compagni VP. Tutius Ignorare Quam Scire: Cornelius Agrippa and Scepticism. In: Paganini G, Neto JRM, eds. Renaissance Scepticisms. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands 2008:91–110.

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 Humanities.

Blog post

Luntz S. Mountains Drive Evolution. IFLScience. 2015.

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. U.S. Preparations for the 1983 Regional Administrative Radio Conference. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office 1983.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Sommer A. How Experiences Influence and Inform School Principals’ Actions to Further Develop Teachers’ Instructional Practice. 2017.

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

Moschen I. An Amenity That’s Going Places. New York Times. 2013;RE8.

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	Medical Humanities
Abbreviation	Med. Humanit.
ISSN (print)	1468-215X
ISSN (online)	1473-4265
Scope	Philosophy Pathology and Forensic Medicine