How to format your references using the Perspectives on Medical Education citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Perspectives on Medical Education. 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

1. Gregersen PK. Genetics. A genomic road map for complex human disease. Science. 2014;343:1087–8.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Sanders RW, Moore JP. HIV: A stamp on the envelope. Nature. 2014;514:437–8.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Raff MC, Whitmore AV, Finn JT. Axonal self-destruction and neurodegeneration. Science. 2002;296:868–71.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Ljujic B, Milovanovic M, Volarevic V, Murray B, Bugarski D, Przyborski S, et al. Human mesenchymal stem cells creating an immunosuppressive environment and promote breast cancer in mice. Sci Rep. 2013;3:2298.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Krasner D. A History of Modern Drama. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2016.

An edited book

1. Luk’yanchuk IA, Mezzane D, editors. Smart Materials for Energy, Communications and Security. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2008.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Kondo K. Liquid Embolic Agents. In: Kessel D, Ray C, editors. Transcatheter Embolization and Therapy. London: Springer; 2009. p. 51–9.

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 on Medical Education.

Blog post

1. Davis J. All-Female Hybrid Salamanders Take Genes From Males Of Three Different Species To Breed [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2017 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/allfemale-hybrid-salamanders-take-genes-from-males-of-three-different-species-to-breed/

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. ADP Budget: SSA’s Information Technology Systems Budget Requests and Obligations. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1987 Mar. Report No.: IMTEC-87-15FS.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Allyasin F. Low-cost frequency-domain methods of ruby fluorescence lifetime measurements [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2010.

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. Van Gelder SKC by L. Arts, Briefly; A New Yorker Clone Folds. New York Times. 2005 Jan 21;E5.

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 title	Perspectives on Medical Education
Abbreviation	Perspect. Med. Educ.
ISSN (print)	2212-2761
ISSN (online)	2212-277X
Scope