How to format your references using the QJM: An International Journal of Medicine citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for QJM: An International Journal of 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 reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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

Yamanaka S. Elite and stochastic models for induced pluripotent stem cell generation. Nature. 2009 Jul 2;460(7251):49–52.

A journal article with 2 authors

Kalinin SV, Spaldin NA. Materials science. Functional ion defects in transition metal oxides. Science. 2013 Aug 23;341(6148):858–9.

A journal article with 3 authors

Rouxel OJ, Bekker A, Edwards KJ. Iron isotope constraints on the Archean and Paleoproterozoic ocean redox state. Science. 2005 Feb 18;307(5712):1088–91.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Shevchenko EV, Talapin DV, Kotov NA, O’Brien S, Murray CB. Structural diversity in binary nanoparticle superlattices. Nature. 2006 Jan 5;439(7072):55–9.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Poikselkä M, Mayer G, Khartabil H, Niemi A. The IMS. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2004.

An edited book

Dada A, Stanoevska K, Gómez JM, editors. Organizations’ Environmental Performance Indicators: Measuring, Monitoring, and Management. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013. XX, 228 p. (Environmental Science and Engineering, Environmental Engineering).

A chapter in an edited book

Perello M, Raingo J. Central Ghrelin Receptors and Food Intake. In: Portelli J, Smolders I, editors. Central Functions of the Ghrelin Receptor. New York, NY: Springer; 2014. p. 65–88.

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 QJM: An International Journal of Medicine.

Blog post

Andrews R. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. NASA Successfully Tests New Heat Shield Designed For Breaching Mars’ Atmosphere. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/space/nasa-successfully-tests-new-heat-shield-designed-future-martian-exploration-missions/

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. Tax Systems Modernization: Management and Technical Weaknesses Must Be Corrected If Modernization Is to Succeed. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1995 Jul. Report No.: AIMD-95-156.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Wilson EM. Lessons Learned from the Gender Wage Gap in the Federal Workforce: Structural Changes and Temporal Flexibility are Only the First Step to Equality [Doctoral dissertation]. [Washington, DC]: George Washington University; 2017.

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

Vecsey G. The World Is Watching. New York Times. 2012 Jun 10;SP11.

In-text citations

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

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	QJM: An International Journal of Medicine
Abbreviation	QJM
ISSN (print)	1460-2393
ISSN (online)	1460-2725
Scope	General Medicine