How to format your references using the West Virginia Medical Journal citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for West Virginia 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	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

Stocker TF. Climate change. The closing door of climate targets. Science. 2013 Jan 18;339(6117):280–2.

A journal article with 2 authors

Deng K, Siliciano RF. HIV: Early treatment may not be early enough. Nature. 2014 Aug 7;512(7512):35–6.

A journal article with 3 authors

Inaba M, Yamanaka H, Kondo S. Pigment pattern formation by contact-dependent depolarization. Science. 2012 Feb 10;335(6069):677.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Lin W, Burgess RW, Dominguez B, Pfaff SL, Sanes JR, Lee KF. Distinct roles of nerve and muscle in postsynaptic differentiation of the neuromuscular synapse. Nature. 2001 Apr 26;410(6832):1057–64.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Speight JG. Coal-Fired Power Generation Handbook. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2013.

An edited book

Faro SH, Mohamed FB, editors. BOLD fMRI: A Guide to Functional Imaging for Neuroscientists. New York, NY: Springer; 2010. X, 294 p. 79 illus., 60 illus. in color.

A chapter in an edited book

van Ooijen PMA, Kristanto W, de Jonge GJ, Kuehnel C, Hennemuth A, Boskamp T, et al. Multi-Dimensional Computed Cardiac Visualization. In: Oudkerk M, Reiser MF, editors. Coronary Radiology. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009. p. 297–338. (Baert AL, Knauth M, Sartor K, editors. Medical Radiology).

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 West Virginia Medical Journal.

Blog post

Hamilton K. Global Warming To Expose More People To Zika-Spreading Mosquito Aedes Aegypti. 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

Government Accountability Office. Information Technology: HUD Needs to Improve Key Project Management Practices for Its Modernization Efforts. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2013 Jun. Report No.: GAO-13-455.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Baugh JB. Deregulation and management strategies: A case study of Georgia System Operations Corporation [Doctoral dissertation]. [Minneapolis, MN]: Capella University; 2008.

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

Pilon M. Off Without a Hitch. New York Times. 2013 Nov 4;F1.

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 title	West Virginia Medical Journal
Abbreviation	W. V. Med. J.
ISSN (print)	0043-3284
Scope	General Medicine