How to format your references using the Hong Kong Medical Journal citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Hong Kong Medical Journal. 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

Sincell M. ROBOTICS: Rescue Droids Stumble in an Urban Jungle. Science. 2000;289(5481):846a.

A journal article with 2 authors

Ciesla FJ, Sandford SA. Organic synthesis via irradiation and warming of ice grains in the solar nebula. Science. 2012;336(6080):452-454.

A journal article with 3 authors

Wang S, Hashimoto N, Ohnuki S. Hydrogen-induced change in core structures of {110}[111] edge and {110}[111] screw dislocations in iron. Sci Rep. 2013;3:2760.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Seisenberger G, Ried MU, Endress T, Büning H, Hallek M, Bräuchle C. Real-time single-molecule imaging of the infection pathway of an adeno-associated virus. Science. 2001;294(5548):1929-1932.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kunz W. Do Species Exist? Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2012.

An edited book

Delrot S, Medrano H, Or E, Bavaresco L, Grando S, eds. Methodologies and Results in Grapevine Research. Springer Netherlands; 2010.

A chapter in an edited book

de Paula LF, Prates DM. Financial Flows to Emerging Economies and Policy Alternatives Post 2008. In: Gevorkyan AV, Canuto O, eds. Financial Deepening and Post-Crisis Development in Emerging Markets: Current Perils and Future Dawns. IMF Working Paper WP/13/183 (Aug). Palgrave Macmillan US; 2016:85-108.

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 Hong Kong Medical Journal.

Blog post

Andrew E. Why haven’t we encountered aliens yet? The answer could be climate change. IFLScience. June 23, 2014. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/why-haven’t-we-encountered-aliens-yet-answer-could-be-climate-change/

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. Small Businesses and Innovation, Small Business Research Conference. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1981.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Pee GY. Sonochemical Remediation of Freshwater Sediments Contaminated with Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons. Doctoral dissertation. Ohio State University; 2008.

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

Pareles J, Ratliff B, Caramanica J, et al. New Chapters From Our Pop Dreams. New York Times. September 18, 2016:AR109.

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	Hong Kong Medical Journal
Abbreviation	Hong Kong Med. J.
ISSN (print)	1024-2708
Scope	General Medicine