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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The Pan African Medical Journal (PAMJ). 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

Lam L. From physics to revolution and back. Science. 2015;348(6239):1170.

A journal article with 2 authors

Li Y, Zhang Z. Potential microRNA-mediated oncogenic intercellular communication revealed by pan-cancer analysis. Sci Rep. 2014;4:7097.

A journal article with 3 authors

Pettifer RF, Collins SP, Laundy D. Quadrupole transitions revealed by Borrmann spectroscopy. Nature. 2008;454(7201):196–199.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Han X, Jin M, Breuker K, McLafferty FW. Extending top-down mass spectrometry to proteins with masses greater than 200 kilodaltons. Science. 2006;314(5796):109–112.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Stack T, Ostrom LT, Wilhelmsen CA. Occupational Ergonomics. 2016. Hoboken, NJ. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Rodriguez-Bigas MA, Cutait R, Lynch PM, Tomlinson I, Vasen HFA (eds.). Hereditary Colorectal Cancer. 2010. Boston, MA. Springer US.

A chapter in an edited book

Vera J, Lai X, Schmitz U, Wolkenhauer O. MicroRNA-Regulated Networks: The Perfect Storm for Classical Molecular Biology, the Ideal Scenario for Systems Biology. In: Schmitz U, Wolkenhauer O, Vera J, editors. MicroRNA Cancer Regulation: Advanced Concepts, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Tools. 2013. Dordrecht. Springer Netherlands: 55–76.

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 Pan African Medical Journal.

Blog post

Andrew E. Image From Curiosity Rover Reveals Mysterious Light. IFLScience. 2014. https://www.iflscience.com/space/image-curiosity-rover-reveals-mysterious-light/. Accessed 30 October 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. Aviation Safety: Better Management Controls are Needed to Improve FAA’s Safety Enforcement and Compliance Efforts. 2004. Washington, DC. U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Goldner VR. Arizona nurses’ attitudes toward legislated minimum staffing ratios: Impact on the workplace. 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

Oestreich JR. Inhaling an Era of Intimacy and Beauty. New York Times. 2016;C4.

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 Pan African Medical Journal
Abbreviation	Pan Afr. Med. J.
ISSN (online)	1937-8688
Scope	General Medicine