How to format your references using the World Medical Journal citation style

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

Chadwick WW Jr. Earth science. A submarine volcano is caught in the act. Science. 2006 Dec 22;314(5807):1887–8.

A journal article with 2 authors

Li JJ, Biggin MD. Gene expression. Statistics requantitates the central dogma. Science. 2015 Mar 6;347(6226):1066–7.

A journal article with 3 authors

Wade JT, Hall DB, Struhl K. The transcription factor Ifh1 is a key regulator of yeast ribosomal protein genes. Nature. 2004 Dec 23;432(7020):1054–8.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Yamaguchi S, Kobayashi M, Mitsui S, Ishida Y, van der Horst GT, Suzuki M, et al. View of a mouse clock gene ticking. Nature. 2001 Feb 8;409(6821):684.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Joseph C. Advanced Credit Risk Analysis and Management. Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2013.

An edited book

Omar HA. Time Division Multiple Access For Vehicular Communications. Zhuang W, editor. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014. XVII, 60 p. 35 illus. (SpringerBriefs in Computer Science).

A chapter in an edited book

Komatineni S, MacLean D. Understanding Content Providers. In: MacLean D, editor. Pro Android 4. Berkeley, CA: Apress; 2012. p. 79–112.

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 World Medical Journal.

Blog post

Andrew E. Shark Week Drinking Game [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2014 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/shark-week-drinking-game/

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. Year 2000 Computing Crisis: Readiness of the Electric Power Industry. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1999 Apr. Report No.: AIMD-99-114.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Sidwell MD. Indirect measures as predictors of social skills observed through means of direct observation [Doctoral dissertation]. [Mississippi State, MS]: Mississippi State University; 2017.

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

(nyt) SK. World Briefing | Europe: Russia: Top General In Chechnya Is Fired. New York Times. 2002 Dec 19;A10.

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	World Medical Journal
ISSN (print)	0049-8122
Scope