How to format your references using the Medical Science Educator citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Medical Science Educator. 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. Gordon JI. Honor thy gut symbionts redux. Science. 2012;336:1251–3.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Lorenz MC, Fink GR. The glyoxylate cycle is required for fungal virulence. Nature. 2001;412:83–6.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Zhang Z, Wang W, Qiu B. Oceanic mass transport by mesoscale eddies. Science. 2014;345:322–4.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. He X, He X, Dave VP, Zhang Y, Hua X, Nicolas E, et al. The zinc finger transcription factor Th-POK regulates CD4 versus CD8 T-cell lineage commitment. Nature. 2005;433:826–33.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Ambachtsheer KP. The Future of Pension Management. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc; 2016.

An edited book

1. Khan MTH, editor. Bioactive Heterocycles IV. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2007.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Sebag J. Pathophysiology of the Aging Vitreous. In: Girach A, Smet MD de, editors. Diseases of the Vitreo-Macular Interface. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2014. p. 29–42.

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 Science Educator.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. Neanderthals confirmed to have buried their dead [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2013 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/neanderthals-confirmed-have-buried-their-dead/

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. Computer Technology: Air Attack Warning System Cannot Process All Radar Track Data. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1991 May. Report No.: IMTEC-91-15.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Pan Y. Long-Term Effects of Higher-Quality Early Childhood Education for At-Risk Children on Their Later Development and Resilience [Doctoral dissertation]. [Chapel Hill, NC]: University of North Carolina; 2010.

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. Kelly D. Unplugged. New York Times. 2001 Jun 10;723.

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 Science Educator
Abbreviation	Med. Sci. Educ.
ISSN (online)	2156-8650
Scope