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

Maddox J 2000 Positioning the goalposts Nature 403 139

A journal article with 2 authors

Maheshwari V and Saraf R F 2006 High-resolution thin-film device to sense texture by touch Science 312 1501–4

A journal article with 3 authors

Li B, Yu Z-H and Fei S-M 2013 Geometry of quantum computation with qutrits Sci. Rep. 3 2594

A journal article with 99 or more authors

Nilsson D-E, Gislén L, Coates M M, Skogh C and Garm A 2005 Advanced optics in a jellyfish eye Nature 435 201–5

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bagdonavičius V, Kruopis J and Nikulin M S 2011 Non-parametric Tests for Censored Data (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc)

An edited book

Franzese G and Rubi M 2008 Aspects of Physical Biology: Biological Water, Protein Solutions, Transport and Replication vol 752 (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer)

A chapter in an edited book

Meynard J-M 2013 Innovating in cropping and farming systems Renewing innovation systems in agriculture and food: How to go towards more sustainability? ed E Coudel, H Devautour, C T Soulard, G Faure and B Hubert (Wageningen: Wageningen Academic Publishers) pp 89–108

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

Carpineti C 2017 Check Out This Mesmerizing Spanish Dancer Sea Slug 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 1994 School-Age Children: Poverty and Diversity Challenge Schools Nationwide (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

Chapple C M 2015 A: Application of Polymeric Quaternary Ammonium Surfactant Clay Intercalates in Triphase Catalysis B: Effect of Various Compatibilizers in Polymer-Clay Nanocomposites Doctoral dissertation (Edwardsville, IL: Southern Illinois University)

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

Dudziak M L 2013 The Global March on Washington New York Times A27

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Maddox 2000).
This sentence cites two references (Maddox 2000, Maheshwari and Saraf 2006).

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

Two authors: (Maheshwari and Saraf 2006)
Three or more authors: (Nilsson et al 2005)

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