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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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.
Fleischhauer M. Physics. Switching light by vacuum. Science. 2011 Sep 2;333(6047):1228–9.
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
Giardina CP, Ryan MG. Evidence that decomposition rates of organic carbon in mineral soil do not vary with temperature. Nature. 2000 Apr 20;404(6780):858–61.
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
Haynes JD, Deichmann R, Rees G. Eye-specific effects of binocular rivalry in the human lateral geniculate nucleus. Nature. 2005 Nov 24;438(7067):496–9.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
1.
Weihofen A, Binns K, Lemberg MK, Ashman K, Martoglio B. Identification of signal peptide peptidase, a presenilin-type aspartic protease. Science. 2002 Jun 21;296(5576):2215–8.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
Flynn MJ, Luk W. Computer System Design. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2011.
An edited book
1.
Brandt P, editor. Reports on Food Safety 2005: Food Monitoring. Basel: Birkhäuser; 2007. IV, 54 p. (BVL-Reporte).
A chapter in an edited book
1.
Arslan-Alaton I, Olmez-Hanci T. Advanced Oxidation of Endocrine Disrupting Compounds: Review on Photo-Fenton Treatment of Alkylphenols and Bisphenol A. In: Lofrano G, editor. Green Technologies for Wastewater Treatment: Energy Recovery and Emerging Compounds Removal. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2012. p. 59–90. (SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science).

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
1.
Andrew D. Memory And Sense Of Self May Play More Of A Role In Autism Than We Thought. IFLScience. 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. Survey To Identify Models Used by Executive Agencies in the Policymaking Process. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1982 Sep. Report No.: PAD-82-46.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1.
Steiner CP. Three essays in applied microeconomics [Doctoral dissertation]. [La Jolla, CA]: University of California San Diego; 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
1.
Gustines GG. Comics Series Ending. New York Times. 2017 Jul 20;C3.

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 titleThe Medical Journal of Australia
AbbreviationMed. J. Aust.
ISSN (print)0025-729X
ISSN (online)1326-5377
ScopeGeneral Medicine

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