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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The American Journal of Psychiatry (AJP). 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	Download the output style file
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

Simmons RM: Prophets without honour? Nature 2000; 407:839

A journal article with 2 authors

Ordureau A, Harper JW: Cell biology: balancing act. Nature 2014; 510:347–348

A journal article with 3 authors

Contreras M, Ceric F, Torrealba F: Inactivation of the interoceptive insula disrupts drug craving and malaise induced by lithium. Science 2007; 318:655–658

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Kenichi T, Kyoko S, Hiroshi F, et al.: Modulated structure of solid iodine during its molecular dissociation under high pressure. Nature 2003; 423:971–974

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Henderson TJ: Beyond Borders. Oxford, UK, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011

An edited book

Greenberg I: Processing: Creative Coding and Generative Art in Processing 2. Berkeley, CA, Apress, 2013

A chapter in an edited book

Mazurek K: Transformation of the Structure of the River Catchment Landscape Located in the Area of Intensive Coal Exploitation, inLuc M, Somorowska U, Szmańda JB, editorsLandscape Analysis and Planning: Geographical Perspectives. Cham, Springer International Publishing, 2015, pp 81–90.

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 Psychiatry.

Blog post

Andrew E: Superpod Of More Than 1,000 Dolphins Spotted Off The Coast Of California [Internet]. IFLScience 2015; [cited 2018 Oct 30] Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/superpod-over-1000-seen-coast-california/

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: Federally Funded Research Centers: Agency Reviews of Employee Compensation and Center Performance. Washington, DC, U.S. Government Printing Office, 2014

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Smith SM: The Relationship Between Political Affiliation and Student Achievement in the Areas of Reading and Mathematics, with Respect to Black Students2017;

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

Apuzzo M, Schmidt MS: White House Tries Civility With Mueller. New York Times 2017; A1

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 title	The American Journal of Psychiatry
Abbreviation	Am. J. Psychiatry
ISSN (print)	0002-953X
ISSN (online)	1535-7228
Scope	Psychiatry and Mental health