How to format your references using the PLOS Medicine citation style

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

Cohen ML. Changing patterns of infectious disease. Nature. 2000;406: 762–767.

A journal article with 2 authors

Ramsey JM, Chester FM. Hybrid fracture and the transition from extension fracture to shear fracture. Nature. 2004;428: 63–66.

A journal article with 3 authors

Spradling A, Drummond-Barbosa D, Kai T. Stem cells find their niche. Nature. 2001;414: 98–104.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Miserez A, Schneberk T, Sun C, Zok FW, Waite JH. The transition from stiff to compliant materials in squid beaks. Science. 2008;319: 1816–1819.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Wallgren A, Wallgren B. Register-Based Statistics. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2014.

An edited book

Lee R, Ormandjieva O, Abran A, Constantinides C, editors. Software Engineering Research, Management and Applications 2010. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2010.

A chapter in an edited book

Levine M. Elementary Algebraic Geometry. In: Dundas BI, Levine M, Østvær PA, Röndigs O, Voevodsky V, editors. Motivic Homotopy Theory: Lectures at a Summer School in Nordfjordeid, Norway, August 2002. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2007. pp. 71–113.

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 PLOS Medicine.

Blog post

O`Callaghan J. Buzz Aldrin Wants Us To Colonize Mars by 2039. In: IFLScience [Internet]. IFLScience; 28 Aug 2015 [cited 30 Oct 2018]. Available: https://www.iflscience.com/space/buzz-aldrin-wants-us-colonise-mars-2039/

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. Meeting the Aging Aircraft Challenge: Status and Opportunities. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1989 Oct. Report No.: T-RCED-90-2.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Klyce LR. Assessing parent-child agreement on an eating disorder symptom questionnaire. Doctoral dissertation, Mississippi State University. 2008.

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

Hartocollis A. A Play Is Set in a Hospital, in Two Ways. New York Times. 9 Jan 2014: C1.

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	PLOS Medicine
Abbreviation	PLoS Med.
ISSN (print)	1549-1277
ISSN (online)	1549-1676
Scope	General Medicine