How to format your references using the Physics in Medicine and Biology citation style

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

Willerroider M 2005 Scientists and societies. Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Nature 433 782

A journal article with 2 authors

Bliss T and Schoepfer R 2004 Neuroscience. Controlling the ups and downs of synaptic strength Science 304 973–4

A journal article with 3 authors

Renata H, Zhou Q and Baran P S 2013 Strategic redox relay enables a scalable synthesis of ouabagenin, a bioactive cardenolide Science 339 59–63

A journal article with 99 or more authors

Vieites D R, Nieto-Román S, Barluenga M, Palanca A, Vences M and Meyer A 2004 Post-mating clutch piracy in an amphibian Nature 431 305–8

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Parke R D 2013 Future Families (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons)

An edited book

Margottini C, Canuti P and Sassa K 2013 Landslide Science and Practice: Volume 1: Landslide Inventory and Susceptibility and Hazard Zoning (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer)

A chapter in an edited book

Castelo-Branco G and Emmanuel-Costa D 2015 Flavour Physics and CP Violation in the Standard Model and Beyond Lectures on Particle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology: Proceedings of the Third IDPASC School, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, January 21 -- February 2, 2013 Springer Proceedings in Physics ed C Merino (Cham: Springer International Publishing) pp 145–86

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 Physics in Medicine and Biology.

Blog post

Andrew D 2017 8 Genetic Mutations That Can Give You “Superpowers” IFLScience

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 1989 P.L. 480 Title I Transportation Issues (Washington, DC: 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

Hylton J K 2016 Scatter; Or, A Series or Minor Inconveniences Doctoral dissertation ( Lafayette, LA: University of Louisiana)

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

Saslow L 2007 Brookhaven Lab Avoids Cuts in Budget New York Times 14LI2

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Willerroider 2005).
This sentence cites two references (Willerroider 2005, Bliss and Schoepfer 2004).

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

Two authors: (Bliss and Schoepfer 2004)
Three or more authors: (Vieites et al 2004)

About the journal

Full journal title	Physics in Medicine and Biology
Abbreviation	Phys. Med. Biol.
ISSN (print)	0031-9155
ISSN (online)	1361-6560
Scope	Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging Radiological and Ultrasound Technology