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

Velasquez-Manoff M. Gut microbiome: the peacekeepers. Nature. 2015 Feb 26;518(7540):S3-11.

A journal article with 2 authors

Cox B, Beard P. Imaging techniques: Super-resolution ultrasound. Nature. 2015 Nov 26;527(7579):451–2.

A journal article with 3 authors

Kirk PDW, Babtie AC, Stumpf MPH. SYSTEMS BIOLOGY. Systems biology (un)certainties. Science. 2015 Oct 23;350(6259):386–8.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Fathman CG, Soares L, Chan SM, Utz PJ. An array of possibilities for the study of autoimmunity. Nature. 2005 Jun 2;435(7042):605–11.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Ramirez J. Accounting for Derivatives. Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons Ltd; 2007.

An edited book

Wu W, editor. Recent Advances in Modeling Landslides and Debris Flows. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015. X, 323 p. 173 illus., 58 illus. in color. (Springer Series in Geomechanics and Geoengineering).

A chapter in an edited book

Janjuha-Jivraj S, Chisholm K. Barriers to Progress: Confidence and Bias. In: Chisholm K, editor. Championing Women Leaders: Beyond Sponsorship. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK; 2016. p. 36–54.

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

Evans K. WWF Lays Out 5 Key Goals To Be Achieved By World Wildlife Day 2019 [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2017 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/wwf-lays-out-5-key-goals-to-be-achieved-by-world-wildlife-day-2019/

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. Motor Carrier Safety: Additional Research Standards and Truck Drivers’ Schedule Data Could Allow More Accurate Assessments of the Hours of Service Rule. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2015 Jul. Report No.: GAO-15-641.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Mills LM. A mentoring program for foster youth transitioning into adulthood: A grant proposal [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 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

Lee L. Almost Ready to Fly. New York Times. 2012 Mar 1;D3.

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