How to format your references using the Postgraduate Medicine citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Postgraduate 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

Vohs KD. Psychology. The poor’s poor mental power. Science. 2013;341(6149):969-970.

A journal article with 2 authors

Phillpot SR, Sinnott SB. Materials science. Simulating multifunctional structures. Science. 2009;325(5948):1634-1635.

A journal article with 3 authors

Levin EJ, Quick M, Zhou M. Crystal structure of a bacterial homologue of the kidney urea transporter. Nature. 2009;462(7274):757-761.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Zhao ZG, Zhang J, Yuan Y, et al. In-situ formation of cobalt-phosphate oxygen-evolving complex-anchored reduced graphene oxide nanosheets for oxygen reduction reaction. Sci Rep. 2013;3:2263.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Relethford JH. 50 Great Myths of Human Evolution. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2017.

An edited book

Chen J, Xu ZC, Xu XM, Zhang JH, eds. Animal Models of Acute Neurological Injuries. Humana Press; 2009.

A chapter in an edited book

Alexandrino MM, Bettiol RG. Polar Foliations. In: Bettiol RG, ed. Lie Groups and Geometric Aspects of Isometric Actions. Springer International Publishing; 2015:109-137.

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 Postgraduate Medicine.

Blog post

Hale T. Fear Of Zombies In Medieval England Made People Do Some Barbaric Things. 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. Highway Safety: Improved Monitoring and Oversight of Traffic Safety Data Program Are Needed. U.S. Government Printing Office; 2004.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Roache RS. Missouri Public School Teachers’ Perception of Tenure. Doctoral dissertation. Lindenwood University; 2015.

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

Koblin J. New Rules for a Tough TV Season. New York Times. November 28, 2016:B1.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

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	Postgraduate Medicine
Abbreviation	Postgrad. Med.
ISSN (print)	0032-5481
ISSN (online)	1941-9260
Scope	General Medicine

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