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]

Miller RJD. Femtosecond crystallography with ultrabright electrons and x-rays: capturing chemistry in action. Science 2014;343:1108–16.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

May M, Brody H. Nature index 2015 Asia-Pacific. Nature 2015;519:S49.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Lutz W, Muttarak R, Striessnig E. Environment and development. Universal education is key to enhanced climate adaptation. Science 2014;346:1061–2.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Xu Q, Kobayashi S, Ye X, Meng X. Comparison of hepatic resection and radiofrequency ablation for small hepatocellular carcinoma: a meta-analysis of 16,103 patients. Sci Rep 2014;4:7252.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Wren C. Concise Guide to Pediatric Arrhythmias. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell; 2011.

An edited book

[1]

Sendra JR. Rational Algebraic Curves: A Computer Algebra Approach. vol. 22. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2008.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Ye E, Chee PL, Prasad A, Fang X, Owh C, Yeo VJJ, et al. Supramolecular Soft Biomaterials for Biomedical Applications. In: Loh XJ, editor. In-Situ Gelling Polymers: For Biomedical Applications, Singapore: Springer; 2015, p. 107–25.

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]

Andrew E. How Flossing Gave This Woman A Knee Infection. IFLScience 2015.

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. Internal Control Management and Evaluation Tool: Exposure Draft (Superseded by GAO-01-1008G). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2001.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Nepal RM. Class II MHC Function in Macrophages and Mice Infected with Mycobacterium. Doctoral dissertation. Ohio State University, 2006.

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]

Saslow L. Pragmatic Appeal to Voters To Approve School Budgets. New York Times 2008:LI1.

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