How to format your references using the Indian Journal of Medical Sciences citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Indian Journal of Medical Sciences. 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

Barabási AL. The origin of bursts and heavy tails in human dynamics. Nature 2005;435(7039):207–11.

A journal article with 2 authors

Kriaucionis S, Heintz N. The nuclear DNA base 5-hydroxymethylcytosine is present in Purkinje neurons and the brain. Science 2009;324(5929):929–30.

A journal article with 3 authors

Mayle FE, Burbridge R, Killeen TJ. Millennial-scale dynamics of southern Amazonian rain forests. Science 2000;290(5500):2291–4.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Stockmar M, Cloetens P, Zanette I, Enders B, Dierolf M, Pfeiffer F, et al. Near-field ptychography: phase retrieval for inline holography using a structured illumination. Sci Rep 2013;3:1927.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Burton E. Business and Entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2016.

An edited book

Puigjaner L, editor. Syngas from Waste: Emerging Technologies. London: Springer; 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

Liu XJ, Wang J. Velocity and Jacobian Analysis of Parallel Mechanisms. In: Wang J, editor. Parallel Kinematics: Type, Kinematics, and Optimal Design. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2014. page 121–8.

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 Indian Journal of Medical Sciences.

Blog post

Fang J. Outer Envelope of Flu Virus Simulated for the First Time [Internet]. IFLScience2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30];Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/outer-envelope-flu-virus-simulated-first-time/

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. Transportation and Telecommunications Reports and Testimony: May 1992 - April 1993. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1993.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Zazworsky LM. Dumbing down for others: Differences in socially motivated underachievement between working and middle class students. 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

Wagner J. Venezuelan Ballplayers Love Homeland, at a Safe Distance. New York Times2017;SP1.

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	Indian Journal of Medical Sciences
Abbreviation	Indian J. Med. Sci.
ISSN (print)	0019-5359
ISSN (online)	1998-3654
Scope	General Medicine