How to format your references using the Perspectives in Medicine citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Perspectives in 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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
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]
V. Gewin, While industrial agrobiotech R&D falters, opportunities in plant biology in the public sector are growing, Nature 419 (2002) 4–5.
A journal article with 2 authors
[1]
R.D. Britt, P.H. Oyala, Biochemistry. One step closer to O₂, Science 345 (2014) 736.
A journal article with 3 authors
[1]
C. Domnisoru, A.A. Kinkhabwala, D.W. Tank, Membrane potential dynamics of grid cells, Nature 495 (2013) 199–204.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
[1]
M.J. Biercuk, H. Uys, A.P. VanDevender, N. Shiga, W.M. Itano, J.J. Bollinger, Optimized dynamical decoupling in a model quantum memory, Nature 458 (2009) 996–1000.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
[1]
B.W. Higman, How Food Made History, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2011.
An edited book
[1]
L. McAlpine, C. Amundsen, eds., Doctoral Education: Research-Based Strategies for Doctoral Students, Supervisors and Administrators, Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 2011.
A chapter in an edited book
[1]
M. Dooly, Promoting Competency-Based Language Teaching Through Project-Based Language Learning, in: M.L. Pérez Cañado (Ed.), Competency-Based Language Teaching in Higher Education, Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 2013: pp. 77–91.

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 Perspectives in Medicine.

Blog post
[1]
E. Andrew, How Scorpion Venom Could Yield New Cancer Treatment, IFLScience (2015). https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/how-scorpion-venom-could-yield-new-cancer-treatment/ (accessed October 30, 2018).

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, Report to the Secretary, HEW, on the National Direct Student Loan Delinquency Rate, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1976.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
[1]
S.J. Washburn, The Epiphytic Macrolichens of the Greater Cincinnati, Ohio, Metropolitan Area, Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2006.

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]
M. Powell, Principles and Posturing, New York Times (2017) B9.

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 titlePerspectives in Medicine
AbbreviationPerspect. Med.
ISSN (print)2211-968X
ScopeGeneral Medicine

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