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. Dubnau, Neuroscience. Ode to the mushroom bodies. Science 335, 664–665 (2012).

A journal article with 2 authors

1. R. Duggavathi, B. D. Murphy, Development. Ovulation signals. Science 324, 890–891 (2009).

A journal article with 3 authors

1. P. D. Jones, T. J. Osborn, K. R. Briffa, The evolution of climate over the last millennium. Science 292, 662–667 (2001).

A journal article with 4 or more authors

1. H. Yoshida, K. Kawane, M. Koike, Y. Mori, Y. Uchiyama, S. Nagata, Phosphatidylserine-dependent engulfment by macrophages of nuclei from erythroid precursor cells. Nature 437, 754–758 (2005).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. F. Costa, C. Gautier, E. Labouré, B. Revol, Electromagnetic Compatibility in Power Electronics (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2013).

An edited book

1. E. Nkonya, A. Mirzabaev, J. von Braun, Eds., Economics of Land Degradation and Improvement – A Global Assessment for Sustainable Development (Springer International Publishing, Cham, 1st ed. 2016., 2016).

A chapter in an edited book

1. A. A. Bavry, D. J. Kumbhani, in Indications and techniques of percutaneous procedures: Coronary, peripheral, and structural heart disease, D. J. Kumbhani, Ed. (Springer Healthcare Ltd., Tarporley, 2012), pp. 25–27.

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. J. O`Callaghan, Japan Launches Spacecraft To Practice Removing Space Junk From OrbitIFLScience (2016) (available at https://www.iflscience.com/space/japan-space-space-junk-tether/).

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, Routine Disclosure of Broadcaster Financial Records (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1980).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. V. F. Ford, thesis, George Washington University, Washington, DC (2012).

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. W. Walsh, Policyholders in Limbo After Rare Failure of InsurerNew York Times , BU5 (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

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