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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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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.
Heritage J. Plant sciences. Will GM rapeseed cut the mustard? Science. 2003;302(5644):401-403.
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
Bollinger JM Jr, Matthews ML. Biochemistry. Remote enzyme microsurgery. Science. 2010;327(5971):1337-1338.
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
Godfrey DI, Pellicci DG, Smyth MJ. Immunology. The elusive NKT cell antigen--is the search over? Science. 2004;306(5702):1687-1689.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
1.
Cliften P, Sudarsanam P, Desikan A, et al. Finding functional features in Saccharomyces genomes by phylogenetic footprinting. Science. 2003;301(5629):71-76.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
Glisic SG. Advanced Wireless Communications & Internet. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2011.
An edited book
1.
Hulst R, Montfort A van, eds. Inter-Municipal Cooperation in Europe. Springer Netherlands; 2007.
A chapter in an edited book
1.
Saariluoma P, Cañas JJ, Leikas J. The Psychology of Fluent Use. In: Cañas JJ, Leikas J, eds. Designing for Life: A Human Perspective on Technology Development. Palgrave Macmillan UK; 2016:79-136.

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
1.
Fang J. Titanosaur Babies Were Surprisingly Precocious. IFLScience.

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. Aviation Security: Challenges Delay Implementation of Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System. U.S. Government Printing Office; 2004.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1.
Jordan VS. A Mixed Methodology Exploration of White Female Pre-Service Teachers’ Discussions of Race and Gender through Presentations of Counternarratives in Children’s Literature Books. Doctoral dissertation. George Washington University; 2017.

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.
Deloureiro L, Burke B, Bretherton G, Stuart C. Harvard Man May Be Winner On Winless Bills. New York Times. October 27, 2010:B11.

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 titleNigerian Medical Journal
AbbreviationNiger. Med. J.
ISSN (print)0300-1652
ScopeGeneral Medicine

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