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

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

Edler J. Research funding. Toward variable funding for international science. Science. 2012;338(6105):331-332.

A journal article with 2 authors

Tikhonov VI, Volkov AA. Separation of water into its ortho and para isomers. Science. 2002;296(5577):2363.

A journal article with 3 authors

Tanaka S, Sawaya MR, Yeates TO. Structure and mechanisms of a protein-based organelle in Escherichia coli. Science. 2010;327(5961):81-84.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

King DA, Peckham C, Waage JK, Brownlie J, Woolhouse MEJ. Epidemiology. Infectious diseases: preparing for the future. Science. 2006;313(5792):1392-1393.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Cooper JD. Soil Water Measurement. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2016.

An edited book

Bledzki LA. Freshwater Crustacean Zooplankton of Europe: Cladocera & Copepoda (Calanoida, Cyclopoida) Key to Species Identification, with Notes on Ecology, Distribution, Methods and Introduction to Data Analysis. (Rybak JI, ed.). Springer International Publishing; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

Rosling A, Littlemore K. Improving Student Mental Models in a New University Information Setting. In: Rikowski R, ed. Digitisation Perspectives. SensePublishers; 2011:89-101.

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 the Medical Sciences.

Blog post

Andrew E. Sci-fi And Jurassic Park Have Driven Research, Scientists Say. IFLScience. June 10, 2015. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/sci-fi-and-jurassic-park-have-driven-research-scientists-say/

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. Senate Bill 543: The Job Training Partnership Act Youth Employment Amendments of 1989. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1989.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Soltani A. Parenting and Disciplinary Practices of Iranian Mothers: A Quantitative Study. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach; 2015.

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

Shpigel B. Its Sports Fandom Evolving, Atlanta Chases Football Glory. New York Times. February 3, 2017:A1.

In-text citations

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

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 the Medical Sciences
Abbreviation	Am. J. Med. Sci.
ISSN (print)	0002-9629
Scope	General Medicine