How to format your references using the African Journal of Laboratory Medicine citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for African Journal of Laboratory Medicine (AJLM). 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 reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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

Lawler A. SOLAR SYSTEM EXPLORATION: Push to Revive Pluto Mission May Mean Competition for JPL. Science 2000;290(5495):1270–1271.

A journal article with 2 authors

Mel’nikov AS, Vinokur VM. Mesoscopic superconductor as a ballistic quantum switch. Nature 2002;415(6867):60–62.

A journal article with 3 authors

Belonoshko AB, Ahuja R, Johansson B. Stability of the body-centred-cubic phase of iron in the Earth’s inner core. Nature 2003;424(6952):1032–1034.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Ko YG, Do TG, Gu T, et al. Line-patterning of polyaniline coated MWCNT on stepped substrates using DC electric field. Sci Rep 2014;4:6656.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Cronin R. Reading Victorian Poetry. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2012;

An edited book

Gao RX. Wavelets: Theory and Applications for Manufacturing. Boston, MA: Springer US, 2011;

A chapter in an edited book

Inman AG, Tummala-Narra P. Immigration and Human Rights. In: Miville ML, Ferguson AD, editors. Handbook of Race-Ethnicity and Gender in Psychology. New York, NY: Springer, 2014; p. 87–109.

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 African Journal of Laboratory Medicine.

Blog post

Luntz S. Triple-Breasted Claim Demonstrates Internet Gullibility Again [Homepage on the Internet]. IFLScience. 2014 [cited 2018 Oct 30];Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/technology/triple-breasted-claim-demonstrates-gullibility-again/

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. Digital Television Transition: Preliminary Information on Initial Consumer Education Efforts. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2007;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Mantilla AN. The differences in the educational experiences and caregiver involvement in education between youth in foster care and those in care of their biological parents. 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

Wilson M. Diary Hints at Slaves’ Remains on a Lot in Brooklyn. New York Times. 2017;A15.

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	African Journal of Laboratory Medicine
ISSN (print)	2225-2002
ISSN (online)	2225-2010
Scope