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

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

Stocker TF. Climate change. The closing door of climate targets. Science. 2013 Jan 18;339(6117):280–2.

A journal article with 2 authors

Kueh HY, Mitchison TJ. Structural plasticity in actin and tubulin polymer dynamics. Science. 2009 Aug 21;325(5943):960–3.

A journal article with 3 authors

Bluestone JA, Herold K, Eisenbarth G. Genetics, pathogenesis and clinical interventions in type 1 diabetes. Nature. 2010 Apr 29;464(7293):1293–300.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Hilgenkamp H, Ariando, Smilde HJH, Blank DHA, Rijnders G, Rogalla H, et al. Ordering and manipulation of the magnetic moments in large-scale superconducting pi-loop arrays. Nature. 2003 Mar 6;422(6927):50–3.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Franssen JM, Vila Real P. Fire Design of Steel Structures. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2016.

An edited book

Habgood J. The Game Maker’s Apprentice: Game Development for Beginners. Overmars M, editor. Berkeley, CA: Apress; 2006. XXI, 311 p. 151 illus., 150 illus. in color.

A chapter in an edited book

Postema PG, Van den Berg MP, Van Tintelen JP, Van den Heuvel F, Grundeken M, Hofman N, et al. Founder mutations in the Netherlands: SCN5a 1795insD, the first described arrhythmia overlap syndrome and one of the largest and best characterised families worldwide*. In: Wilde AAM, Tintelen JP van, editors. Founder mutations in inherited cardiac diseases in the Netherlands. Houten: Bohn Stafleu van Loghum; 2014. p. 21–7.

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 Medical Journal of Australia.

Blog post

Andrew E. There Was A Decline Of Male Diversity When Humans Took To Agriculture [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/there-was-decline-male-diversity-when-humans-took-agriculture/

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. NASA: Earned Value Management Implementation across Major Spaceflight Projects Is Uneven. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2012 Nov. Report No.: GAO-13-22.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Moss KA. The Development and Diffusion of the Cult of Isis in the Hellenistic Period [Doctoral dissertation]. [Tucson, AZ]: University of Arizona; 2017.

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

Leland J. Worn With Pride. New York Times. 2016 Aug 5;MB9.

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 Medical Journal of Australia
Abbreviation	Med. J. Aust.
ISSN (print)	0025-729X
ISSN (online)	1326-5377
Scope	General Medicine