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. Weitz DA. Materials science. Unjamming a polymer glass. Science. 2009;323:214–5.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Phillips GN, Evans KA. Role of CO2 in the formation of gold deposits. Nature. 2004;429:860–3.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Bilham R, Gaur VK, Molnar P. Earthquakes. Himalayan seismic hazard. Science. 2001;293:1442–4.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Ye D, Zheng G, Wang J, Wang Z, Qiao S, Huangfu J, et al. Negative group velocity in the absence of absorption resonance. Sci Rep. 2013;3:1628.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Anwar S, Carroll JJ. Carbon Dioxide Thermodynamic Properties Handbook. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2016.

An edited book

1. Bourg EL, Rattan SIS, editors. Mild Stress and Healthy Aging: Applying Hormesis in Aging Research and Interventions. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2008.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Rosenkrantz DJ, Stearns RE, Lewis PM. Consistency and serializability in concurrent database systems. In: Ravi SS, Shukla SK, editors. Fundamental Problems in Computing: Essays in Honor of Professor Daniel J Rosenkrantz. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2009. p. 99–132.

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 D. How Three-Day Weekends Can Help Save The World (And Us Too). IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016.

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. Telephone Communications: Issues Affecting Rural Telephone Service. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1987 Mar. Report No.: RCED-87-74.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Clark BM. Faculty Perceptions of the Importance of Internationalizing the General Education Curriculum in the Florida College System [Doctoral dissertation]. [Tampa, FL]: University of South Florida; 2013.

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. Steel E, de la MERCED MJ. Discovery Closes In on Acquiring Scripps Networks as Viacom Exits Competition. New York Times. 2017 Jul 27;B3.

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

Research and Writing Guides