How to format your references using the Prehospital Emergency Care citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Prehospital Emergency Care (PEC). 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

Schmerr N: The Gutenberg discontinuity: melt at the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary. Science. 2012;March 23;335(6075):1480–3.

A journal article with 2 authors

Enquist JA Jr, Stoltz BM: The total synthesis of (-)-cyanthiwigin F by means of double catalytic enantioselective alkylation. Nature. 2008;June 26;453(7199):1228–31.

A journal article with 3 authors

Benton MJ, Wills MA, Hitchin R: Quality of the fossil record through time. Nature. 2000;February 3;403(6769):534–7.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Lim LP, Glasner ME, Yekta S, et al.: Vertebrate microRNA genes. Science. 2003;March 7;299(5612):1540.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Fleming P, Lee R: Orthodontic Functional Appliances. Chichester, UK, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2016.

An edited book

MacGillivray H, Phillips B, Martin MA: Topics from Australian Conferences on Teaching Statistics: OZCOTS 2008-2012. New York, NY, Springer, 2014 2014;81.

A chapter in an edited book

Levitt JO: Injections., Safety in Office-Based Dermatologic Surgery. Edited by Levitt JO, Sobanko JF. Cham, Springer International Publishing, 2015, pp 15–30.

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 Prehospital Emergency Care.

Blog post

Andrew D: Does Tapping A Can Of Fizzy Drink Really Stop It Foaming Over?IFLScience. 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

Government Accountability Office: Space Operations: NASA Is Not Archiving All Potentially Valuable Data. Washington, DC, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1990.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Schreiber JS: Discursive constructions of decline: Narratives of illness and financial stress among residents in assisted living.

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

McKINLEY JC Jr: 3 Are Charged With Selling Ivory Objects Despite Ban. New York Times.

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	Prehospital Emergency Care
Abbreviation	Prehosp. Emerg. Care
ISSN (print)	1090-3127
ISSN (online)	1545-0066
Scope	Emergency Medicine Emergency