How to format your references using the Trials citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Trials. 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. Gross DJ. The frontier physicist. Nature. 2010;467:S8.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Smith SA, Donoghue MJ. Rates of molecular evolution are linked to life history in flowering plants. Science. 2008;322:86–9.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Mani A, Rahwan I, Pentland A. Inducing peer pressure to promote cooperation. Sci Rep. 2013;3:1735.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Urnov FD, Miller JC, Lee Y-L, Beausejour CM, Rock JM, Augustus S, et al. Highly efficient endogenous human gene correction using designed zinc-finger nucleases. Nature. 2005;435:646–51.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Mohanty S, Ghosh R. Planning a Scientific Career in Industry. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2010.

An edited book

1. Mukhopadhyay SC, editor. New Developments in Sensing Technology for Structural Health Monitoring. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Cheah Y-L, Toh GC-H, Heng J-W, Wee EW-L. Transdisciplinary Management of Perioperative Nutrition. In: Tan K-Y, editor. Transdisciplinary Perioperative Care in Colorectal Surgery: An Integrative Approach. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2015. p. 41–75.

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 Trials.

Blog post

1. Taub B. Noggin Brain Protein Could Be A More Effective Anti-Depressant Than Prozac. 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. Procurement Equipment for St. Louis Postal Data Center. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1974 Jul. Report No.: B-180235.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Topdemir CM. School counselor accountability practices: A national study [Doctoral dissertation]. [Tampa, FL]: University of South Florida; 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. Paulson M. Artistic Director Leaves The Labyrinth Theater. New York Times. 2017 Jun 23;C3.

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	Trials
Abbreviation	Trials
ISSN (online)	1745-6215
Scope	Medicine (miscellaneous) Pharmacology (medical)