How to format your references using the Swiss Medical Weekly citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Swiss Medical Weekly. 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

Parham P. Immunology. NK cells lose their inhibition. Science. 2004 Aug 6;305(5685):786–7.

A journal article with 2 authors

Yang Y, Lisberger SG. Purkinje-cell plasticity and cerebellar motor learning are graded by complex-spike duration. Nature. 2014 Jun 26;510(7506):529–32.

A journal article with 3 authors

Lieberman E, Hauert C, Nowak MA. Evolutionary dynamics on graphs. Nature. 2005 Jan 20;433(7023):312–6.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Liu C, Hao F, Zhao X, Zhao Q, Luo S, Lin H. Low temperature reduction of free-standing graphene oxide papers with metal iodides for ultrahigh bulk conductivity. Sci Rep. 2014 Feb 5;4:3965.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Furger C. Live Cell Assays. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2016.

An edited book

Schomburg D, Schomburg I, editors. Springer Handbook of Enzymes: Class 1 · Oxidoreductases X EC 1.9–1.13. Second Edition. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2006. XXIV, 749 p. (Springer Handbook of Enzymes; vol. 25).

A chapter in an edited book

Kumar A, Gupta A, Azooz MM, Sharma S, Ahmad P, Dames J. Genetic Approaches to Improve Salinity Tolerance in Plants. In: Ahmad P, Azooz MM, Prasad MNV, editors. Salt Stress in Plants: Signalling, Omics and Adaptations. New York, NY: Springer; 2013. p. 63–78.

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 Swiss Medical Weekly.

Blog post

Andrew E. Citizens Are Helping Document The Serengeti’s Enigmatic Wildlife [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/citizens-are-helping-document-serengetis-enigmatic-wildlife/

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. [Comments on DOD Data Center Consolidation Plan]. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1994 May. Report No.: B-256497.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Payne LG. The experience of caring for women with drug or alcohol problems in the general hospital [Doctoral dissertation]. [Boca Raton, FL]: Florida Atlantic University; 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

Mueller B. Prudence or Power Grab? Cuomo Adds Troopers to New York City. New York Times. 2017 Jun 26;A1.

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	Swiss Medical Weekly
Abbreviation	Swiss Med. Wkly
ISSN (print)	1424-7860
ISSN (online)	1424-3997
Scope	General Medicine