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]

Scholl A. ANTIFERROMAGNETISM: Taking a Very Close Look at Magnetic Structures. Science 2000;288:1762–3.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Bercovici D, Karato S-I. Whole-mantle convection and the transition-zone water filter. Nature 2003;425:39–44.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Bland-Hawthorn J, Harwit A, Harwit M. Astronomy. Laser telemetry from space. Science 2002;297:523.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Perrings C, Naeem S, Ahrestani F, Bunker DE, Burkill P, Canziani G, et al. Conservation. Ecosystem services for 2020. Science 2010;330:323–4.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Cazdyn E, Szeman I. After Globalization. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2011.

An edited book

[1]

Tserpes KI, Silvestre N, editors. Modeling of Carbon Nanotubes, Graphene and their Composites. vol. 188. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Ratnarajah N, Simmons A, Hojjatoleslami A. Probabilistic Clustering and Shape Modelling of White Matter Fibre Bundles Using Regression Mixtures. In: Fichtinger G, Martel A, Peters T, editors. Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention – MICCAI 2011: 14th International Conference, Toronto, Canada, September 18-22, 2011, Proceedings, Part II, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011, p. 25–32.

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]

O`Callaghan J. Is There LIFE Elsewhere In The Universe? IFLScience 2017. https://www.iflscience.com/space/is-there-life-elsewhere-in-the-universe-0/ (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. Radio Frequencies: Earlier Coordination Could Improve System Use and Save Costs. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1987.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Dasari RA. Automatic driving system by recognizing road signs using digital image processing. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach, 2016.

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]

Crow K. Reclaiming a Shabby Block of Maritime History. New York Times 2003:147.

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