How to format your references using the Pharmaceutical Methods citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Pharmaceutical Methods. 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	Download the output style file
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

Benabid AL. Neuroscience: spotlight on deep-brain stimulation. Nature. 2015;519(7543):299-300.

A journal article with 2 authors

Zhu H, Bunn HF. Signal transduction. How do cells sense oxygen? Science. 2001;292(5516):449-451.

A journal article with 3 authors

Staal M, Meysman FJR, Stal LJ. Temperature excludes N2-fixing heterocystous cyanobacteria in the tropical oceans. Nature. 2003;425(6957):504-507.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Föhlisch A, Feulner P, Hennies F, et al. Direct observation of electron dynamics in the attosecond domain. Nature. 2005;436(7049):373-376.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Machin D, Campbell MJ. Design of Studies for Medical Research. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2005.

An edited book

Hausheer D, Schönwälder J, eds. Resilient Networks and Services: Second International Conference on Autonomous Infrastructure, Management and Security, AIMS 2008 Bremen, Germany, July 1-3, 2008 Proceedings. Vol 5127. Springer; 2008.

A chapter in an edited book

Forieri I, Hell R. Micronutrient Use Efficiency – Cell Biology of Iron and Its Metabolic Interactions in Plants. In: Hawkesford MJ, Kopriva S, De Kok LJ, eds. Nutrient Use Efficiency in Plants: Concepts and Approaches. Plant Ecophysiology. Springer International Publishing; 2014:133-152.

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 Pharmaceutical Methods.

Blog post

Andrew E. Modafinil – The ‘Smart Drug’ Leading The Charge Towards A Future Of Neuroenhancement. 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

Government Accountability Office. Need for a Government-Wide Budget Classification Structure for Federal Research and Development Information. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1977.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Kong C. Formal Methods Applied to the Specification of an Active Network Node. Doctoral dissertation. University of Cincinnati; 2001.

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

Greenhouse L. On Contraception, It’s Church Over State. New York Times. October 11, 2017:SR10.

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	Pharmaceutical Methods
Abbreviation	Pharm. Methods
ISSN (print)	2229-4708
Scope