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

DeWeerdt S. Psychodermatology: An emotional response. Nature. 2012;492(7429):S62-3.

A journal article with 2 authors

Holyoake T, Vetrie D. Cancer: Repositioned to kill stem cells. Nature. 2015;525(7569):328-329.

A journal article with 3 authors

Lee DH, Kwon KH, Yi CS. Selective catalytic C-H alkylation of alkenes with alcohols. Science. 2011;333(6049):1613-1616.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Büttner T, Geier J, Frison G, et al. A stable aminyl radical metal complex. Science. 2005;307(5707):235-238.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Staudt G. Experimentalphysik. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2001.

An edited book

Rojo J, ed. Selected Works of E. L. Lehmann. Springer US; 2012.

A chapter in an edited book

Campi L. A Note on Market Completeness with American Put Options. In: Kabanov Y, Rutkowski M, Zariphopoulou T, eds. Inspired by Finance: The Musiela Festschrift. Springer International Publishing; 2014:73-82.

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. I’m Stuck Like Glue: Why I Love Magnets and you Should Too. IFLScience. Published July 8, 2015. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/physics/i-m-stuck-glue-why-i-love-magnets-and-you-should-too/

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. National Airspace System: Observations on the Wide Area Augmentation System. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1997.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Do YK. Effects of Informal Care on Caregivers’ Labor Market Outcomes and Health in South Korea. Doctoral dissertation. University of North Carolina; 2008.

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

Hu W. An Eyesore for 17 Years in Harlem. New York Times. July 16, 2017:A17.

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