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]

McNab BK. Energy constraints on carnivore diet. Nature 2000;407:584.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Vecchi GA, Soden BJ. Effect of remote sea surface temperature change on tropical cyclone potential intensity. Nature 2007;450:1066–70.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Armitage JJ, Collier JS, Minshull TA. The importance of rift history for volcanic margin formation. Nature 2010;465:913–7.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Perraki A, DeFalco TA, Derbyshire P, Avila J, Séré D, Sklenar J, et al. Phosphocode-dependent functional dichotomy of a common co-receptor in plant signalling. Nature 2018;561:248–52.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Bai Q, Bai Y, Ruan W. Advances in Pipes and Pipelines. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2017.

An edited book

[1]

Balint PJ. Wicked Environmental Problems: Managing Uncertainty and Conflict. Washington, DC: Island Press/Center for Resource Economics; 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Koprić I. Independent Local Lists in Croatia: In Search for a Composite Theoretical Frame. In: Reiser M, Holtmann E, editors. Farewell to the Party Model?: Independent Local Lists in East and West European Countries, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften; 2008, p. 39–61.

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]

Andrews R. These Infographics Show How Doomed The Arctic Really Is. 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. Aviation Research: Perspectives on FAA’s Efforts to Develop New Technology. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1995.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Pulsifer JE. Learning from the Uighurs: Correcting Inadequate Due Process in Terrorist Financing Sanction Regimes. Doctoral dissertation. George Washington University, 2012.

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]

Crow K. Teaching Tour Guides the Trivia Behind the Trivia. New York Times 2001:144.

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