How to format your references using the Science Translational Medicine citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Science Translational 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	Download the output style file
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

1. J. L. van Leeuwen, Plant science. Launched at 36,000g. Science 329, 395–396 (2010).

A journal article with 2 authors

1. A. Trautmann, E. Vivier, Immunology. Agrin--a bridge between the nervous and immune systems. Science 292, 1667–1668 (2001).

A journal article with 3 authors

1. M. Morris, K. Uchida, T. Do, A magnetic torsional wave near the Galactic Centre traced by a “double helix” nebula. Nature 440, 308–310 (2006).

A journal article with 4 or more authors

1. M. Loose, E. Fischer-Friedrich, J. Ries, K. Kruse, P. Schwille, Spatial regulators for bacterial cell division self-organize into surface waves in vitro. Science 320, 789–792 (2008).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. G. Röpke, Nonequilibrium Statistical Physics (Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany, 2013).

An edited book

1. S. D. Golding, M. Glikson, Eds., Earliest Life on Earth: Habitats, Environments and Methods of Detection (Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 2011).

A chapter in an edited book

1. J. Ren, in Applying Comparative Effectiveness Data to Medical Decision Making: A Practical Guide, C. Asche, Ed. (Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2016), pp. 53–62.

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 Science Translational Medicine.

Blog post

1. K. Hamilton, What The Color of Your Urine Says About Your HealthIFLScience (2014) (available at https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/what-color-your-urine-says-about-your-health/).

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, Bridge Safety: Structural Soundness of the Zilwaukee Bridge (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1988).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. J. Yobby, thesis, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL (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. M. M. Lane, In Forbidden Art, Beauty and BrutalityNew York Times , C1 (2016).

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	Science Translational Medicine
Abbreviation	Sci. Transl. Med.
ISSN (print)	1946-6234
ISSN (online)	1946-6242
Scope	General Medicine