How to format your references using the Critical Care citation style

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

1. Eisenstein M. Medical marijuana: Showdown at the cannabis corral. Nature. 2015;525:S15-7.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Palfrey J, Zittrain J. Information science. Better data for a better Internet. Science. 2011;334:1210–1.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Grunwald R, Elsaesser T, Bock M. Spatio-temporal coherence mapping of few-cycle vortex pulses. Sci Rep. 2014;4:7148.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Chan P, Lucio-Martinez I, Mo X, Simon C, Tittel W. Performing private database queries in a real-world environment using a quantum protocol. Sci Rep. 2014;4:5233.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Garduno Barrera D, Diaz M. Communicating Systems with UML 2. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc; 2011.

An edited book

1. Spink A, Cole C, editors. New Directions in Cognitive Information Retrieval. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2005.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Bradley J, Bradley MD, Colvin J. Which Universal Service Obligation Attributes Do Americans Value? In: Crew M, Brennan TJ, editors. The Future of the Postal Sector in a Digital World. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. p. 59–74.

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 Critical Care.

Blog post

1. Davis J. Men Conceived Using IVF Have Increased Risk Of Fertility Problems [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/men-conceived-using-ivf-have-increased-risk-of-fertility-problems/. 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

1. Government Accountability Office. Highway Projects: Extent of Projects with Unobligated Balances of Greater Than 85 Percent as of August 16, 2002. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2002 Sep. Report No.: GAO-02-1059R.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Hao S. An Introduction to Discrete Minimal Surfaces via the Enneper Surface [Doctoral dissertation]. [Edwardsville, IL]: Southern Illinois University; 2013.

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

1. Crow K. A Mystery in Harlem. New York Times. 2002 Sep 15;141.

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	Critical Care
Abbreviation	Crit. Care
ISSN (online)	1364-8535
Scope	Critical Care and Intensive Care Medicine General Medicine