How to format your references using the Clinical Oral Investigations citation style

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

Fleming N (2013) Tell fans definitive calls are an impossible goal. Nature 497:537

A journal article with 2 authors

Machner MP, Isberg RR (2007) A bifunctional bacterial protein links GDI displacement to Rab1 activation. Science 318:974–977

A journal article with 3 authors

Morris M, Uchida K, Do T (2006) A magnetic torsional wave near the Galactic Centre traced by a “double helix” nebula. Nature 440:308–310

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Hátún H, Sandø AB, Drange H, et al (2005) Influence of the Atlantic subpolar gyre on the thermohaline circulation. Science 309:1841–1844

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

McCrary SA (2009) Mastering Financial Accounting Essentials. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Ahrar K, Gupta S (2014) Percutaneous Image-Guided Biopsy. Springer, New York, NY

A chapter in an edited book

Bhowmik MK, Kennedy KJ (2016) ‘Out of School’ Ethnic Minority Young People: Multiple Data Sources, Their Meaning, and Extent of the ‘Out of School’ Phenomenon. In: Kennedy KJ (ed) ‘Out of School’ Ethnic Minority Young People in Hong Kong. Springer, Singapore, pp 79–114

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 Oral Investigations.

Blog post

Hale T (2017) Deadly Syndrome That Gives Bats A White Mustache Is Spreading Across The US. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/deadly-syndrome-that-gives-bats-a-white-mustache-is-spreading-across-the-us/. Accessed 30 Oct 2018

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 (1976) Federal Short Takeoff and Landing Transport Programs: Status and Needs. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Brown ML (2010) Examining leadership and the laminated glass ceiling: Gender and leadership traits. Doctoral dissertation, Northcentral University

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

Yablonsky L (2007) Eye Spy. New York Times 6228

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 Oral Investigations
Abbreviation	Clin. Oral Investig.
ISSN (print)	1432-6981
ISSN (online)	1436-3771
Scope	General Dentistry