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. A. J. Wolpert, The future of electronic data. Nature 420, 17–18 (2002).

A journal article with 2 authors

1. N. K. Schwalb, F. Temps, Base sequence and higher-order structure induce the complex excited-state dynamics in DNA. Science 322, 243–245 (2008).

A journal article with 3 authors

1. D. Van Dyck, J. R. Jinschek, F.-R. Chen, “Big Bang” tomography as a new route to atomic-resolution electron tomography. Nature 486, 243–246 (2012).

A journal article with 4 or more authors

1. E. Treiner, L. Duban, S. Bahram, M. Radosavljevic, V. Wanner, F. Tilloy, P. Affaticati, S. Gilfillan, O. Lantz, Selection of evolutionarily conserved mucosal-associated invariant T cells by MR1. Nature 422, 164–169 (2003).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. G. Dayton, Trade Mindfully (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2014).

An edited book

1. M.-T. Liong, Ed., Probiotics: Biology, Genetics and Health Aspects (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2011).

A chapter in an edited book

1. A. Laghi, P. Paolantonio, M. Rengo, P. Lucchesi, in MR Angiography of the Body, Medical Radiology. E. Neri, M. Cosottini, D. Caramella, Eds. (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2010), pp. 27–33.

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. E. Andrew, Algae Study Sheds Light On The Evolution Of SexesIFLScience (2014) (available at https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/algae-study-sheds-light-evolution-sexes/).

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, Land Management Systems: Actions Needed in Completing the Automated Land and Mineral Record System Development (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1998).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. J. R. Vallaster, thesis, George Washington University, Washington, DC (2019).

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. D. Gelles, L. Thomas Jr., A. R. Sorkin, K. Kelly, Rebellion by Business Leaders Spelled End of Trump CouncilsNew York Times , A1 (2017).

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