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

Glikson A. Comment on “Zircon thermometer reveals minimum melting conditions on earliest Earth” I. Science. 2006;311(5762):779; author reply 779.

A journal article with 2 authors

Xi Y, Chen D. Physiology. Partitioning the circadian clock. Science. 2014;345(6201):1122-1123.

A journal article with 3 authors

Veríssimo A, Cochrane MA, Souza C Jr. Ecology. National forests in the Amazon. Science. 2002;297(5586):1478.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Jackson RB, Jobbágy EG, Avissar R, et al. Trading water for carbon with biological carbon sequestration. Science. 2005;310(5756):1944-1947.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Massari M, Gianfrate G, Zanetti L. Corporate Valuation. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2016.

An edited book

Giri PK, Goswami DK, Perumal A, eds. Advanced Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Advanced Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology, Dec 8-10, 2011, Guwahati, India. Vol 143. Springer; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

Grobusch MP, Kremsner PG. Uncomplicated Malaria. In: Compans RW, Cooper MD, Honjo T, et al., eds. Malaria: Drugs, Disease and Post-Genomic Biology. Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology. Springer; 2005:81-104.

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 American Journal of Sports Medicine.

Blog post

Davis J. Researchers Create A Stable Organism Containing Synthetic DNA That Can Replicate Indefinitely. IFLScience. Published January 24, 2017. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/researchers-create-a-stable-organism-containing-synthetic-dna-that-can-replicate-indefinitely/

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. Direct Student Loans: Selected Characteristics of Participating Schools. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1995.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Ponder S. Parent Information Nights: An Elementary School Principal’s Search to Increase Parent Input and Affect the Learning-at-Home Environment. Doctoral dissertation. Lindenwood University; 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

Brantley B. Theater; Dancer Plays a Dancer. New York Times. October 16, 2016:AR4.

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 ^2,4.
This sentence cites four references ^2,6–8.

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