How to format your references using the Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. 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]

M. Roobol, “Perspective: Enforce the clinical guidelines,” Nature, vol. 528, no. 7582, p. S123, Dec. 2015.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

D. Margoliash and O. Tchernichovski, “DEVELOPMENT. Marmoset kids actually listen,” Science, vol. 349, no. 6249, pp. 688–689, Aug. 2015.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

J. T. Malinowski, R. J. Sharpe, and J. S. Johnson, “Enantioselective synthesis of pactamycin, a complex antitumor antibiotic,” Science, vol. 340, no. 6129, pp. 180–182, Apr. 2013.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

N. Nishimura, K. Hitomi, A. S. Arvai, et al., “Structural mechanism of abscisic acid binding and signaling by dimeric PYR1,” Science, vol. 326, no. 5958, pp. 1373–1379, Dec. 2009.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

F. Fingerloos, J. Hegger, and K. Zilch, EUROCODE 2 für Deutschland. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 2016.

An edited book

[1]

R. de Franchis and A. Dell’Era, Eds., Variceal Hemorrhage. New York, NY: Springer, 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

C. Cilley, “Latin America’s Mixed Views About Globalization, Investments and the United States,” in Public Opinion Polling in a Globalized World, M. Carballo and U. Hjelmar, Eds. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2008, pp. 61–76.

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 Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Blog post

[1]

D. Andrew, “Here Are The Last Photos A Star-Crossed Robot Took Before Killing Itself On A Comet,” IFLScience, 01-Oct-2016. [Online]. Available: https://www.iflscience.com/space/here-are-the-last-photos-a-starcrossed-robot-took-before-killing-itself-on-a-comet/. [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, “Congressional Oversight: FAA Case Study Shows How Agency Performance, Budgeting, and Financial Information Could Enhance Oversight,” U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, GAO-06-378, Mar. 2006.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

P. P. Deolikar, “Lecture Video Search Engine Using Hadoop MapReduce,” Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, 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

[1]

B. Rothenberg, “Young Player Has Made Her Name by Speaking Her Mind,” New York Times, p. B9, 20-Jan-2017.

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	Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Abbreviation	Evid. Based. Complement. Alternat. Med.
ISSN (print)	1741-427X
ISSN (online)	1741-4288
Scope	Complementary and alternative medicine