How to format your references using the The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety. 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

[1]

G. Eberl, Immunology: A is for immunity, Nature. 508 (2014) 47–48.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

M. Strong, G. Church, Gem of an idea for a unique machine, Nature. 447 (2007) 112.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

D.J. Lacks, J.A. Van Orman, C.E. Lesher, Isotope fractionation in silicate melts, Nature. 482 (2012) E1; discussion E1-2.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

A. Villunger, E.M. Michalak, L. Coultas, F. Müllauer, G. Böck, M.J. Ausserlechner, J.M. Adams, A. Strasser, p53- and drug-induced apoptotic responses mediated by BH3-only proteins puma and noxa, Science. 302 (2003) 1036–1038.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

K. Sab, A. Lebée, Homogenization of Heterogeneous Thin and Thick Plates, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2015.

An edited book

[1]

M. Abdalla, T. Lange, eds., Pairing-Based Cryptography – Pairing 2012: 5th International Conference, Cologne, Germany, May 16-18, 2012, Revised Selected Papers, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

M. Schein, Rational Diagnostic Procedures, in: M. Schein, P. Rogers, A. Assalia (Eds.), Schein’s Common Sense Emergency Abdominal Surgery: An Unconventional Book for Trainees and Thinking Surgeons, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2009: pp. 25–31.

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 Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety.

Blog post

[1]

E. Andrew, Hypospadias: The Cause Of Penis Malformation Is Still A Matter Of Debate, IFLScience. (2016).

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

[1]

Government Accountability Office, Aviation Security: TSA Should Ensure Testing Data Are Complete and Fully Used to Improve Screener Training and Operations, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2016.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

T.F. Zimmerman, A descriptive review of the development and implementation of a funding model for the Kentucky Community and Technical College System: The first 10 years, 1998–2008, Doctoral dissertation, Mississippi State 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

[1]

J. Kaag, Cosmic Explorer, New York Times. (2017) BR13.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

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 Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety
ISSN (print)	1553-7250
Scope

Research and Writing Guides