How to format your references using the Sexual Health citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Sexual Health. 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

Meyer G. Playing the field. Science 2015; 348(6237): 938.

A journal article with 2 authors

Kassiotis G, O’Garra A. Immunology. Immunity benefits from a little suppression. Science 2008; 320(5880): 1168-1169.

A journal article with 3 authors

Collins PG, Arnold MS, Avouris P. Engineering carbon nanotubes and nanotube circuits using electrical breakdown. Science 2001; 292(5517): 706-709.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Schmidt J, Brilliantov N, Spahn F, Kempf S. Slow dust in Enceladus’ plume from condensation and wall collisions in tiger stripe fractures. Nature 2008; 451(7179): 685-688.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Stack T, Ostrom LT, Wilhelmsen CA. Occupational Ergonomics. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc; 2016.

An edited book

Richt JA, Webby RJ, eds. Swine Influenza. Vol 370. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

Wong K, Holliday ND, Kerr ID. Single Molecule or Ensemble Fluorescence Microscopy Investigations of ABC Transporter Oligomerisation and Dynamics. In: George AM, ed. ABC Transporters - 40 Years On. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016:85-102.

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 Sexual Health.

Blog post

Davis J. Mentally Complex Jobs Could Help Protect Against Certain Aspects Of Alzheimer’s. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/mentally-complex-jobs-could-help-protect-against-certain-aspects-of-alzheimers/ [verified October 2018].

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

Government Accountability Office. Policies on U.S. Citizens Studying Medicine Abroad Need Review and Reappraisal. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1980.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Tate KJ. Utilizing Canines in a Public School Setting: A Case Study. 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

Sisario B. McCartney Sues to Get Back His Songs. New York Times. January 19, 2017:B2.

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 title	Sexual Health
Abbreviation	Sex. Health
ISSN (print)	1448-5028
ISSN (online)	1449-8987
Scope	Infectious Diseases Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health