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 (SAMJ). 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

Deweerdt S. Prevention: activity is the best medicine. Nature 2011;475(7355):S16-7.

A journal article with 2 authors

Golder SA, Macy MW. Diurnal and seasonal mood vary with work, sleep, and daylength across diverse cultures. Science 2011;333(6051):1878–1881.

A journal article with 3 authors

Manoharan HC, Lutz CP, Eigler DM. Quantum mirages formed by coherent projection of electronic structure. Nature 2000;403(6769):512–515.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Yang H, Luo G, Karnchanaphanurach P, et al. Protein conformational dynamics probed by single-molecule electron transfer. Science 2003;302(5643):262–266.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Benitez M, Davidson J, Flaxman L. Small Schools, Big Ideas. San Francisco, CA, USA: Jossey-Bass; 2009.

An edited book

Hurst JL, Beynon RJ, Roberts SC, Wyatt TD, editors. Chemical Signals in Vertebrates 11. New York, NY: Springer; 2008.

A chapter in an edited book

Suzumura A. Interactions Between Neurons and Microglia During Neuroinflammation. In: Suzumura A, Ikenaka K, editors. Neuron-Glia Interaction in Neuroinflammation. New York, NY: Springer; 2013. page 63–73.

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

Hale T. Enormous Green Meteor Caught On Camera Above California. IFLScience 2016;

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. Improved Management of Computer Resources Needed To Enhance Marine Corps’ Efficiency and Effectiveness. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1977.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Eskridge RD. Municipal government: Does institutional structural reform make a difference in local government? 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

McKINLEY JC Jr. After Scrutiny, Vance Returned $32,000 to Trump Lawyer. New York Times 2017;A20.

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