How to format your references using the Nature Medicine citation style

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

Betz, A. G. Immunology. Have you seen your mother, baby. Science 330, 1635–1636 (2010).

A journal article with 2 authors

Field, J. & Brace, S. Pre-social benefits of extended parental care. Nature 428, 650–652 (2004).

A journal article with 3 authors

DeLoache, J. S., Uttal, D. H. & Rosengren, K. S. Scale errors offer evidence for a perception-action dissociation early in life. Science 304, 1027–1029 (2004).

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Hankins, T. H., Kern, J. S., Weatherall, J. C. & Eilek, J. A. Nanosecond radio bursts from strong plasma turbulence in the Crab pulsar. Nature 422, 141–143 (2003).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Ludders, J. W. & McMillan, M. Errors in Veterinary Anesthesia. (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2016).

An edited book

Emerging Threats to Energy Security and Stability. (Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 2005).

A chapter in an edited book

Mitra, A. & Zaman, S. Blue Carbon in Floral Community. in Blue Carbon Reservoir of the Blue Planet (ed. Zaman, S.) 113–141 (Springer India, New Delhi, 2015).

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 Nature Medicine.

Blog post

Evans, K. Ancient Turtles Evolved Necks To Snap Up Prey, Not As Timid Defense. IFLScience https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/ancient-turtles-evolved-necks-to-snap-up-prey-not-as-timid-defense/ (2017).

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. Deferral of Energy Research and Development Administration Budget Authority. (1977).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Bryant, J. D. The Investigation of Self-Determination in Students Participating in Higher Education with an Invisible Disability. (Lindenwood University, St. Charles, MO, 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

Koblin, J. Grammy Awards Gain a Million More Viewers. New York Times C3 (2017).

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	Nature Medicine
Abbreviation	Nat. Med.
ISSN (print)	1078-8956
ISSN (online)	1546-170X
Scope	General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology General Medicine