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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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
1.
Nutt D. Help luck along to find psychiatric medicines. Nature. 2014 Nov 13;515(7526):165.
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
Saykally RJ, Wales DJ. Chemistry. Pinning down the water hexamer. Science. 2012 May 18;336(6083):814–5.
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
Zachos JC, Dickens GR, Zeebe RE. An early Cenozoic perspective on greenhouse warming and carbon-cycle dynamics. Nature. 2008 Jan 17;451(7176):279–83.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
1.
Kosak ST, Skok JA, Medina KL, Riblet R, Le Beau MM, Fisher AG, et al. Subnuclear compartmentalization of immunoglobulin loci during lymphocyte development. Science. 2002 Apr 5;296(5565):158–62.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
Daïan JF. Equilibrium and Transfer in Porous Media 3. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2014.
An edited book
1.
Sun W. The “New Culture”: From a Modern Perspective. 1st ed. 2015. Zhang M, editor. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2015. XIX, 218 p. 1 illus.
A chapter in an edited book
1.
Heimgärtner R. ISO 9241-210 and Culture? – The Impact of Culture on the Standard Usability Engineering Process. In: Marcus A, editor. Design, User Experience, and Usability User Experience Design Practice: Third International Conference, DUXU 2014, Held as Part of HCI International 2014, Heraklion, Crete, Greece, June 22-27, 2014, Proceedings, Part IV. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014. p. 39–48. (Hutchison D, Kanade T, Kittler J, Kleinberg JM, Kobsa A, Mattern F, et al., editors. Lecture Notes in Computer Science).

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
1.
Andrew E. Scientists Grow First Contracting Human Muscle Tissue In Lab [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/scientists-grow-first-contracting-human-muscle-tissue-lab/

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
1.
Government Accountability Office. Flaws in Controls Over the Supplemental Security Income Computerized System Cause Millions in Erroneous Payments. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1979 Aug. Report No.: HRD-79-104.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1.
Zamora L. Azura digital health: Scheduling application and prescription service for women’s health [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 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
1.
Wines M. In Search of the Right Type of Juror, When a Police Officer Is on Trial. New York Times. 2017 May 31;A16.

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 titleQJM: An International Journal of Medicine
AbbreviationQJM
ISSN (print)1460-2393
ISSN (online)1460-2725
ScopeGeneral Medicine

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