How to format your references using the The AAPS Journal citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The AAPS 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

1. Goldston D. Misspent energy. Nature. 2007;447:130.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Emanuel EJ, Wertheimer A. Public health. Who should get influenza vaccine when not all can? Science. 2006;312:854–5.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Yu Y, Huang L, Cao L. Semiconductor solar superabsorbers. Sci Rep. 2014;4:4107.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Keren K, Krueger M, Gilad R, Ben-Yoseph G, Sivan U, Braun E. Sequence-specific molecular lithography on single DNA molecules. Science. 2002;297:72–5.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Flood JM. Wiley Gaap 2015. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2014.

An edited book

1. Wartofsky L, Van Nostrand D, editors. Thyroid Cancer: A Comprehensive Guide to Clinical Management. 3rd ed. 2016. New York, NY: Springer; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Hansson SO. Evaluating the Uncertainties. In: Hansson SO, Hirsch Hadorn G, editors. The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis: Reasoning about Uncertainty. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. p. 79–104.

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 The AAPS Journal.

Blog post

1. Fang J. Doctors have cleared second baby of HIV. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2014.

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

1. Government Accountability Office. High Risk Series: Guaranteed Student Loans. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1992 Dec. Report No.: HR-93-2.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. McKinley KJ. Exploring the efficiency and effectiveness of teacher selection tools: The effects on the total group with a focus on the experience sub-groups [Doctoral dissertation]. [ St. Charles, MO]: Lindenwood University; 2009.

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

1. Shpigel B. Rout Leaves Jets’ Hopes in Peril and Fitzpatrick’s Job in Jeopardy. New York Times. 2016 Oct 18;B12.

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	The AAPS Journal
Abbreviation	AAPS J.
ISSN (online)	1550-7416
Scope

Research and Writing Guides