How to format your references using the The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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.
Rokas A. Genomics. Lining up to avoid bias. Science 2008;319:416–7.
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
Jacob L, Lum L. Deconstructing the hedgehog pathway in development and disease. Science 2007;318:66–8.
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
Desai BS, Chadha A, Cook B. The stum gene is essential for mechanical sensing in proprioceptive neurons. Science 2014;343:1256–9.
A journal article with 11 or more authors
1.
Lee H-R, Lee K, Cho J, Choi Y-H, You C-Y, Jung M-H, Bonell F, Shiota Y, Miwa S, Suzuki Y. Spin-orbit torque in a bulk perpendicular magnetic anisotropy Pd/FePd/MgO system. Sci Rep 2014;4:6548.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
Taylor B. Effective Environmental, Health, and Safety Management Using the Team Approach. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2005.
An edited book
1.
Jurdak M. Social and Political Dimensions of Mathematics Education: Current Thinking. Vithal R, de Freitas E, Gates P, Kollosche D, editors. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. VIII, 37 p p.
A chapter in an edited book
1.
Kislinger T. Mass Spectrometry-based Systems Biology. In: Jurisica I, Wigle DA, Wong B, editors. Cancer Informatics in the Post Genomic Era: Toward Information-Based Medicine. Boston, MA: Springer US; 2007. p. 59–83.

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 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Blog post
1.
Hale T. Scientists Just Found This Weird Jellyfish Deep In The Pacific Ocean [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/scientists-just-found-weird-creature-deep-ocean/

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. FCC: Provision of Roaming Services by Commercial Mobile Radio Service Providers. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1996 Sep. Report No.: OGC-96-39.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1.
Palmer CM. Intramural scheduling time preferences to increase student participation [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2010.

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.
Barnard A. Russia Says Deal Will Bar Americans From Flying in Most of Syria’s Airspace. New York Times. 2017;A9.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in parentheses:

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 titleThe American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
AbbreviationAm. J. Clin. Nutr.
ISSN (print)0002-9165
ISSN (online)1938-3207
ScopeMedicine (miscellaneous)
Nutrition and Dietetics

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