How to format your references using the Pharmacology and Therapeutics citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Pharmacology and Therapeutics. 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

Christeson, G. (2009). Journal club. A geophysicist ponders the mysteries of intraplate earthquakes. Nature, 459(7248), 755.

A journal article with 2 authors

Johnston, R. J., & Hobert, O. (2003). A microRNA controlling left/right neuronal asymmetry in Caenorhabditis elegans. Nature, 426(6968), 845–849.

A journal article with 3 authors

Richardson, J. J., Björnmalm, M., & Caruso, F. (2015). Multilayer assembly. Technology-driven layer-by-layer assembly of nanofilms. Science (New York, N.Y.), 348(6233), aaa2491.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Jeppesen, C., Wong, J. Y., Kuhl, T. L., Israelachvili, J. N., Mullah, N., Zalipsky, S., & Marques, C. M. (2001). Impact of polymer tether length on multiple ligand-receptor bond formation. Science (New York, N.Y.), 293(5529), 465–468.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hammes, G. G. (2005). Spectroscopy for the Biological Sciences. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Reiher, M. (Ed.). (2007). Atomistic Approaches in Modern Biology: From Quantum Chemistry to Molecular Simulations (Vol. 268). Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Jalan, S., Atay, F. M., & Jost, J. (2013). Inferring Global Synchrony from Local Symbolic Dynamics. In S. Banerjee & L. Rondoni (Eds.), Applications of Chaos and Nonlinear Dynamics in Science and Engineering - Vol. 3 (pp. 161–170). Springer.

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 Pharmacology and Therapeutics.

Blog post

Felton, J. (2017, May 25). Scientists Grow Flatworm With Two Heads Instead Of Tail. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/scientists-grow-flatworm-with-two-heads-instead-of-tail/

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. (2008). Information Technology: Agriculture Needs to Strengthen Management Practices for Stabilizing and Modernizing Its Farm Program Delivery Systems (GAO-08-657). U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Johnson, A. (2015). Instructional Practices in Physical Education Programs for Students with Disabilities [Doctoral dissertation]. Northcentral University.

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

Brantley, B. (2016, September 27). A Lesson on Slavery With Bite and No Mercy. New York Times, C1.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Christeson, 2009).
This sentence cites two references (Christeson, 2009; Johnston & Hobert, 2003).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Johnston & Hobert, 2003)
Three authors: (Richardson et al., 2015)
6 or more authors: (Jeppesen et al., 2001)

About the journal

Full journal title	Pharmacology and Therapeutics
Abbreviation	Pharmacol. Ther.
ISSN (print)	0163-7258
Scope	Pharmacology (medical) Pharmacology