How to format your references using the The Ceylon Medical Journal citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The Ceylon Medical Journal. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Seife C. NEUROPSYCHOLOGY: Language Affects Sound Perception. Science. 2000 Dec 15;290(5499):2051b–2b.

A journal article with 2 authors

Cadwell K, Coscoy L. Ubiquitination on nonlysine residues by a viral E3 ubiquitin ligase. Science. 2005 Jul 1;309(5731):127–30.

A journal article with 3 authors

Ruthazer ES, Akerman CJ, Cline HT. Control of axon branch dynamics by correlated activity in vivo. Science. 2003 Jul 4;301(5629):66–70.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Huang ZT, Li YF, Jiang PK, Chang SX, Song ZL, Liu J, et al. Long-term intensive management increased carbon occluded in phytolith (PhytOC) in bamboo forest soils. Sci Rep. 2014 Jan 8;4:3602.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Benslama M, Kiamouche W, Batatia H. Connections Management Strategies in Satellite Cellular Networks. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2015.

An edited book

Yin H, Costa JAF, Barreto G, editors. Intelligent Data Engineering and Automated Learning - IDEAL 2012: 13th International Conference, Natal, Brazil, August 29-31, 2012. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2012. XXI, 862 p. 280 illus. (Lecture Notes in Computer Science; vol. 7435).

A chapter in an edited book

Frunze N. Essential Mass and Structure of Soil Microorganisms in the Black Earth. In: Dent D, editor. Soil as World Heritage. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2014. p. 29–35.

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 Ceylon Medical Journal.

Blog post

Taub B. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016. Study Reveals How The Brains Of Criminal Psychopaths Are Wired.

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. DOD Acquisition: Case Study of the Air Force Space Based Space Surveillance System. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1986 Jul. Report No.: NSIAD-86-45S-17.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Pantallion AS. A parallel comparison of views regarding student preparation for introductory college chemistry [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: 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

Crow K. Residents Banish a Coffee Cart, Amid Cries of Uncaring Elitism. New York Times. 2001 Jan 21;146.

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 Ceylon Medical Journal
Abbreviation	Ceylon Med. J.
ISSN (print)	0009-0875
Scope	General Medicine