How to format your references using the Retina citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Retina. 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.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
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.
Hanash S. Disease proteomics. Nature. 2003;422(6928):226-232.
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
Bruick RK, McKnight SL. A conserved family of prolyl-4-hydroxylases that modify HIF. Science. 2001;294(5545):1337-1340.
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
Gong M, Kirkeminde A, Ren S. Symmetry-defying iron pyrite (FeS₂) nanocrystals through oriented attachment. Sci Rep. 2013;3:2092.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
1.
Tran TS, Rubio ME, Clem RL, et al. Secreted semaphorins control spine distribution and morphogenesis in the postnatal CNS. Nature. 2009;462(7276):1065-1069.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
Scott AW, Frobenius R. RF Measurements for Cellular Phones and Wireless Data Systems. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2008.
An edited book
1.
Sen S. Diabetes Mellitus in 21st Century. (Chakraborty R, De B, eds.). Springer; 2016.
A chapter in an edited book
1.
Martella C, Shaposhnik R, Logothetis D. Working with Giraph. In: Shaposhnik R, Logothetis D, eds. Practical Graph Analytics with Apache Giraph. Apress; 2015:109-136.

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 Retina.

Blog post
1.
Andrew D. Creepy, Crawly Maggots Are Actually A Medical Powerhouse. 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
1.
Government Accountability Office. Establishment of a Central Focal Point for Telecommunications Matters. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1978.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1.
Norris C. What Is Lost Along the Way. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach; 2014.

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.
Crow K. Go West, They Said. And So Should the 7 Train. New York Times. February 24, 2002:146.

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 titleRetina
AbbreviationRetina
ISSN (print)0275-004X
ISSN (online)1539-2864
ScopeGeneral Medicine
Ophthalmology

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