How to format your references using the Physica Medica citation style

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

Ford AT. The mechanistic pathways of trophic interactions in human-occupied landscapes. Science 2015;350:1175.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Dekel E, Alon U. Optimality and evolutionary tuning of the expression level of a protein. Nature 2005;436:588–92.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Winkler W, Nahvi A, Breaker RR. Thiamine derivatives bind messenger RNAs directly to regulate bacterial gene expression. Nature 2002;419:952–6.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Hu Y-C, Wu L, Yan L-F, Wang W, Wang S-M, Chen B-Y, et al. Predicting subtypes of thymic epithelial tumors using CT: new perspective based on a comprehensive analysis of 216 patients. Sci Rep 2014;4:6984.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Burd B. Java® For Dummies®. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing, Inc.; 2011.

An edited book

[1]

Davies P, Rajapakse YDS, editors. Durability of Composites in a Marine Environment. vol. 208. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Mohamad KM, Herawan T, Deris MM. Hiding Data in JPEG Using in-DQT Technique. In: Bandyopadhyay SK, Adi W, Kim T-H, Xiao Y, editors. Information Security and Assurance: 4th International Conference, ISA 2010, Miyazaki, Japan, June 23-25, 2010. Proceedings, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2010, p. 27–36.

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 Physica Medica.

Blog post

[1]

Hamilton K. Think Swearing Isn’t Big Or Clever? Think Again. IFLScience 2017. https://www.iflscience.com/brain/think-swearing-isnt-big-or-clever-think-again/ (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. Standard Budget Classifications--Proposed Functions and Subfunctions. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1976.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

VanQuickenborne T. Exploring generative change. Doctoral dissertation. Pepperdine University, 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]

Schilling MK. The Accidental Tourist. New York Times 2017:M2106.

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	Physica Medica
Abbreviation	Phys. Med.
ISSN (print)	1120-1797
Scope	Biophysics General Medicine Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging General Physics and Astronomy