How to format your references using the Nigerian Medical Journal citation style

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

Coller HA. Cell biology. The essence of quiescence. Science. 2011;334(6059):1074-1075.

A journal article with 2 authors

Weiss BP, Tikoo SM. The lunar dynamo. Science. 2014;346(6214):1246753.

A journal article with 3 authors

Stassun KG, Mathieu RD, Valenti JA. Discovery of two young brown dwarfs in an eclipsing binary system. Nature. 2006;440(7082):311-314.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Ostoja Starzewski KA, Younkin TR, Connor EF, et al. Scope of olefin polymerization nickel catalysts. Science. 2000;288(5472):1749-1751.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

von Eye A, Mun EY. Log-Linear Modeling. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2012.

An edited book

Lin Y. Audio Watermark: A Comprehensive Foundation Using MATLAB. (Abdulla WH, ed.). Springer International Publishing; 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

Guveli A, Ganzeboom HBG, Platt L, et al. Migration and Return Migration. In: Ganzeboom HBG, Platt L, Nauck B, et al., eds. Intergenerational Consequences of Migration: Socio-Economic, Family and Cultural Patterns of Stability and Change in Turkey and Europe. Palgrave Macmillan UK; 2016:49-68.

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 Nigerian Medical Journal.

Blog post

Andrew E. Why is the Sky Blue and the Sun Yellow? IFLScience. October 20, 2014. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/physics/why-sky-blue-and-sun-yellow-ls-currently-working/

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. Early Childhood Programs: The Use of Impact Evaluations to Assess Program Effects. U.S. Government Printing Office; 2001.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Doddick S. Noncontact 2D Plethysmography: A Non-Invasive Technique for Monitoring Dynamic Trends in a Respiratory System. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach; 2012.

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

Burghardt LF. A Symbol of Carefree, Innocent Fun? Not in Oyster Bay. New York Times. May 28, 2006:14LI10.

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	Nigerian Medical Journal
Abbreviation	Niger. Med. J.
ISSN (print)	0300-1652
Scope	General Medicine