How to format your references using the Tzu Chi Medical Journal citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Tzu Chi Medical Journal. 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

[1]

Sheil M. Perspective: on the verge of a new ERA. Nature 2014;511:S67.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Graham S, Hegde D. Intellectual Property. Disclosing patents’ secrets. Science 2015;347:236–7.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Duan LM, Cirac JI, Zoller P. Geometric manipulation of trapped ions for quantum computation. Science 2001;292:1695–7.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Li S-J, Hua Z-S, Huang L-N, Li J, Shi S-H, Chen L-X, et al. Microbial communities evolve faster in extreme environments. Sci Rep 2014;4:6205.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Hobkirk JA, Gill DS, Jones SP, Hemmings KW, Bassi GS, O’Donnell AL, et al. Hypodontia. West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.; 2010.

An edited book

[1]

Kiefer F, Schulte-Merker S, editors. Developmental Aspects of the Lymphatic Vascular System. vol. 214. Vienna: Springer; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Miller RP, Penn JW, van Leeuwen J. Amazonian homegardens: Their ethnohistory and potential contribution to agroforestry development. In: Kumar BM, Nair PKR, editors. Tropical Homegardens: A Time-Tested Example of Sustainable Agroforestry, Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2006, p. 43–60.

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 Tzu Chi Medical Journal.

Blog post

[1]

Andrew E. Hubble and Spitzer spy galaxies from dawn of the Universe. IFLScience 2014. https://www.iflscience.com/space/hubble-and-spitzer-spy-galaxies-dawn-universe/ (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

[1]

Government Accountability Office. School District Claim to Department of Air Force. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1979.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Douet C. The influence of an overseas trip to France on high school students studying French, four years after graduation. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach, 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]

Landler M, Alcindor Y. Condolence Call to Widow Ignites Trump Imbroglio. New York Times 2017:A1.

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	Tzu Chi Medical Journal
Abbreviation	Tzu Chi Med. J.
ISSN (print)	1016-3190
Scope	General Medicine