How to format your references using the Sexually Transmitted Infections citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Sexually Transmitted Infections. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Metzger RA. The stars my incarnation. Nature. 2000;408:35.

A journal article with 2 authors

Chen W-P, Yang Z. Earthquakes beneath the Himalayas and Tibet: evidence for strong lithospheric mantle. Science. 2004;304:1949–52.

A journal article with 3 authors

Li D, Zhang P, Yan J. Ab initio molecular dynamics study of high-pressure melting of beryllium oxide. Sci Rep. 2014;4:4707.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Kangas AT, Evans AR, Thesleff I, et al. Nonindependence of mammalian dental characters. Nature. 2004;432:211–4.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

McAulay AD. Military Laser Technology for Defense. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2011.

An edited book

Nickerson B, editor. Sample Preparation of Pharmaceutical Dosage Forms: Challenges and Strategies for Sample Preparation and Extraction. Boston, MA: Springer US 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

Payziyeva S, Paiziev A. Food Security in Uzbekistan. In: Alpas H, Smith M, Kulmyrzaev A, eds. Strategies for Achieving Food Security in Central Asia. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands 2012:43–56.

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 Sexually Transmitted Infections.

Blog post

Davis J. ‘Secret Ginger Gene’ May Increase Risk Of Developing Skin Cancer. IFLScience. 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/secret-ginger-gene-may-increase-risk-of-developing-skin-cancer/ (accessed 30 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. U.S. Statistics on International Technology Transfer: Need for Additional Measures. Washington, DC: 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

Cosma AC. Real-Time Individual Thermal Preferences Prediction Using Visual Sensors. 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

Hollander S. On Way to Rout, Liberty Wins at the Free-Throw Line. New York Times. 2000;D4.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

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	Sexually Transmitted Infections
Abbreviation	Sex. Transm. Infect.
ISSN (print)	1368-4973
ISSN (online)	1472-3263
Scope	Dermatology Infectious Diseases