How to format your references using the Medical Principles and Practice citation style

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

Anderson JB. Climate change. Ice sheet stability and sea-level rise. Science. 2007 Mar;315(5820):1803–4.

A journal article with 2 authors

Wain-Hobson S, Weiss RA. If free speech costs lives that’s a high price to pay. Nature. 2000 Oct;407(6806):834.

A journal article with 3 authors

Cossart R, Aronov D, Yuste R. Attractor dynamics of network UP states in the neocortex. Nature. 2003 May;423(6937):283–8.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Thornton JA, Kercher JP, Riedel TP, Wagner NL, Cozic J, Holloway JS, et al. A large atomic chlorine source inferred from mid-continental reactive nitrogen chemistry. Nature. 2010 Mar;464(7286):271–4.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Minns P, Elliott I. FSM-Based Digital Design Using Verilog HDL. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2008.

An edited book

Pollert J, Dedus B, editors. Security of Water Supply Systems: from Source to Tap. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2006.

A chapter in an edited book

Thimbleby H. Interaction Walkthrough: Evaluation of Safety Critical Interactive Systems. In: Doherty G, Blandford A, editors. Interactive Systems. Design, Specification, and Verification: 13th International Workshop, DSVIS 2006, Dublin, Ireland, July 26-28, 2006. Revised Papers. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2007; pp 52–66.

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 Principles and Practice.

Blog post

Davis J. Here’s Something You’ve Never Experienced If You’re Under The Age Of 40 [Internet]. IFLScience. 2016 Sep [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/heres-something-youve-never-experienced-if-youre-under-the-age-of-40/

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. Motor Vehicle Safety: Key Issues Confronting the National Advanced Driving Simulator. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1992.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Williams C. Tattooing and the Generalized Other. 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

Johnson K. From Iraq to Oregon, a Global Lotto Jackpot. New York Times. 2015 Dec;A15.

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 Principles and Practice
Abbreviation	Med. Princ. Pract.
ISSN (print)	1011-7571
ISSN (online)	1423-0151
Scope	General Medicine