How to format your references using the Clinical Laboratory citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Clinical Laboratory. 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 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

Lengauer C. Cancer. An unstable liaison. Science. 2003 Apr 18;300(5618):442–3.

A journal article with 2 authors

Allen RM, Kanamori H. The potential for earthquake early warning in southern California. Science. 2003 May 2;300(5620):786–9.

A journal article with 3 authors

Bell FI, McEwen IJ, Viney C. Fibre science: supercontraction stress in wet spider dragline. Nature. 2002 Mar 7;416(6876):37.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Ishida S, Iwamoto T, Kabuto C, Kira M. A stable silicon-based allene analogue with a formally sp-hybridized silicon atom. Nature. 2003 Feb 13;421(6924):725–7.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Uriev NB. Technology of Dispersed Systems and Materials. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2016.

An edited book

Chockler H, Hu AJ, editors. Hardware and Software: Verification and Testing: 4th International Haifa Verification Conference, HVC 2008, Haifa, Israel, October 27-30, 2008. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009. XII, 215 p. (Lecture Notes in Computer Science; vol. 5394).

A chapter in an edited book

Karwatowski M, Russek P, Wielgosz M, Koryciak S, Wiatr K. Energy Efficient Calculations of Text Similarity Measure on FPGA-Accelerated Computing Platforms. In: Wyrzykowski R, Deelman E, Dongarra J, Karczewski K, Kitowski J, Wiatr K, editors. Parallel Processing and Applied Mathematics: 11th International Conference, PPAM 2015, Krakow, Poland, September 6-9, 2015 Revised Selected Papers, Part I. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. p. 31–40. (Lecture Notes in Computer Science).

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 Clinical Laboratory.

Blog post

Fang J. Fossil Skull Suggests Humans and Neanderthals Lived Side by Side in the Middle East [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/fossil-skull-suggests-humans-and-neanderthals-lived-side-side-middle-east/

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 Resellers: Consumer Privacy Framework Needs to Reflect Changes in Technology and the Marketplace. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2013 Sep. Report No.: GAO-13-663.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Escobedo NL. A continuing bonds grief support group for Latinas who have lost a child: A grant proposal [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2014.

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

Hale M. It’s Hard Out There For Mercy Killers. New York Times. 2017 Apr 21;C6.

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	Clinical Laboratory
Abbreviation	Clin. Lab.
ISSN (print)	1433-6510
Scope	General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology