How to format your references using the The Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and 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

Lerner RA. Retrospective. R. Bruce Merrifield (1921-2006). Science. 2006;313(5783):57.

A journal article with 2 authors

Vafabakhsh R, Ha T. Extreme bendability of DNA less than 100 base pairs long revealed by single-molecule cyclization. Science. 2012;337(6098):1097-1101.

A journal article with 3 authors

Korswagen HC, Herman MA, Clevers HC. Distinct beta-catenins mediate adhesion and signalling functions in C. elegans. Nature. 2000;406(6795):527-532.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Bank S, Jana P, Maiti S, Guha S, Sinha AK. Dermcidin isoform-2 induced nullification of the effect of acetyl salicylic acid in platelet aggregation in acute myocardial infarction. Sci Rep. 2014;4:5804.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Sapienza AM. Managing Scientists. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2004. ISBN:9780471663591.

An edited book

Pertwee RG, ed. Endocannabinoids. Vol 231. 1st ed. 2015. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015. ISBN:9783319208244.

A chapter in an edited book

Hamied FA. English in Multicultural and Multilingual Indonesian Education. In: Kirkpatrick A, Sussex R, eds. English as an International Language in Asia: Implications for Language Education. Multilingual Education. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2012:63-78. ISBN:9789400745773.

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 Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences.

Blog post

Fang J. How Eyespots Showed Up On Butterfly Wings. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/how-eyespots-showed-up-on-butterfly-wings/. Published June 22, 2016. Accessed October 30, 2018.

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. Examination of Disbursing Officer’s Account, U.S. Army Quartermaster School, Fort Lee, Virginia. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1976.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Dhantole G. Evaluating provision of healthcare system in the U.S. 2014.

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

Nir SM, Rosenberg E. Recreation and Commerce Collide on City’s Crowded Waterways. New York Times. September 1, 2016:A21.

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 Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences
Abbreviation	J. Gerontol. A Biol. Sci. Med. Sci.
ISSN (print)	1079-5006
ISSN (online)	1758-535X
Scope	Ageing Geriatrics and Gerontology

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