How to format your references using the Pharmacology citation style

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

Gershon D. Look, no hands. Nature. 2003 Jul;424(6948):583.

A journal article with 2 authors

Ponce de León MS, Zollikofer CP. Neanderthal cranial ontogeny and its implications for late hominid diversity. Nature. 2001 Aug;412(6846):534–8.

A journal article with 3 authors

Kang M-K, Kim SJ, Kim HJ. Fabrication of high performance thin-film transistors via pressure-induced nucleation. Sci Rep. 2014 Oct;4:6858.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Lawrence T, Bebien M, Liu GY, Nizet V, Karin M. IKKalpha limits macrophage NF-kappaB activation and contributes to the resolution of inflammation. Nature. 2005 Apr;434(7037):1138–43.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Korst J, Pronk V. Multimedia Storage and Retrieval. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2006.

An edited book

Clark J. Lifting Modules: Supplements and Projectivity in Module Theory. Basel: Birkhäuser; 2006.

A chapter in an edited book

Casares ER, Sobarzo H. Externalities, Optimal Subsidy and Growth. In: Pinto AA, Accinelli Gamba E, Yannacopoulos AN, Hervés-Beloso C, editors. Trends in Mathematical Economics: Dialogues Between Southern Europe and Latin America. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016; pp 53–71.

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.

Blog post

Andrew E. Coydogs And Lynxcats And Pizzlies, Oh My [Internet]. IFLScience. 2015 Jun

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. Federally Leased Vehicles: Agencies Should Strengthen Assessment Processes to Reduce Underutilized Vehicles. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2016.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Chen MS. Emergency shelter for abused and neglected elders A grant proposal project. 2014

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

Herrman J. Full Disclosure. New York Times. 2017 Feb;MM11.

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	Pharmacology
Abbreviation	Pharmacology
ISSN (print)	0031-7012
ISSN (online)	1423-0313
Scope	General Medicine Pharmacology