How to format your references using the South African Medical Journal citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for South African Medical Journal. 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

Postle K. Close before opening. Science 2002;295(5560):1658–9.

A journal article with 2 authors

Lee GM, Craik CS. Trapping moving targets with small molecules. Science 2009;324(5924):213–5.

A journal article with 3 authors

Marimuthu A, Zhang J, Linic S. Tuning selectivity in propylene epoxidation by plasmon mediated photo-switching of Cu oxidation state. Science 2013;339(6127):1590–3.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Ding M, Chao D, Wang G, Shen K. Spatial regulation of an E3 ubiquitin ligase directs selective synapse elimination. Science 2007;317(5840):947–51.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Allerton D. Principles of Flight Simulation. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2009.

An edited book

Ferraro P, Wax A, Zalevsky Z, editors. Coherent Light Microscopy: Imaging and Quantitative Phase Analysis. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

Frederico E, Parente JG. Determinants of Relationship Continuity between Fashion Retailers and Suppliers in Brazil. In: Swoboda B, Morschett D, Rudolph T, Schnedlitz P, Schramm-Klein H, editors. European Retail Research. Wiesbaden: Gabler Verlag; 2009. page 87–115.

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 South African Medical Journal.

Blog post

Andrew E. Upgraded LHC Pushes Physics Into The Unknown. IFLScience2015;

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. Space Shuttle Accident: NASA’s Actions To Address the Presidential Commission Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1987.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Richardson RS. A phenomenological hermeneutic study of radiology. 2015;

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

Leland J. Challenger Shows Himself Equal to World’s No. 1. New York Times2016;SP9.

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	South African Medical Journal
Abbreviation	S. Afr. Med. J.
ISSN (print)	0256-9574
ISSN (online)	2078-5135
Scope	General Medicine