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

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

Stan R. The borders I crossed. Science. 2014;345(6204):1650.

A journal article with 2 authors

Lipson H, Pollack JB. Automatic design and manufacture of robotic lifeforms. Nature. 2000;406(6799):974-978.

A journal article with 3 authors

Whittier SK, Hengge AC, Loria JP. Conformational motions regulate phosphoryl transfer in related protein tyrosine phosphatases. Science. 2013;341(6148):899-903.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Lata S, Schoehn G, Jain A, et al. Helical structures of ESCRT-III are disassembled by VPS4. Science. 2008;321(5894):1354-1357.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Krause TR. Leading with Safety. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2005.

An edited book

Talia D. Grid Middleware and Services: Challenges and Solutions. (Yahyapour R, Ziegler W, eds.). Springer US; 2008.

A chapter in an edited book

Saul B. Civilising the Exception: Universally Defining Terrorism. In: Masferrer A, ed. Post 9/11 and the State of Permanent Legal Emergency: Security and Human Rights in Countering Terrorism. Springer Netherlands; 2012:79-100.

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 Sports Medicine.

Blog post

Fang J. Report: How Climate Change Impacts America. IFLScience. May 6, 2014. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/report-how-climate-change-impacts-america/

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. Electronic Government: Potential Exists for Enhancing Collaboration on Four Initiatives. U.S. Government Printing Office; 2003.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Simsic G. Revisiting Addiction Using Depth Psychology: The Myth of Exodus as a Blueprint for Recovery. Doctoral dissertation. Pacifica Graduate Institute; 2012.

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

Brantley B. Stoppard for an Age of Uncertainty. New York Times. May 1, 2017:AR16.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference ².
This sentence cites two references ^3,4.
This sentence cites four references ^4,5,7,8.

About the journal

Full journal title	The American Journal of Sports Medicine
Abbreviation	Am. J. Sports Med.
ISSN (print)	0363-5465
ISSN (online)	1552-3365
Scope	Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation