How to format your references using the Legal Medicine citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Legal 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]

D. Lunt, Palaeoclimate science: Causes and effects of Antarctic ice, Nature 511 (2014) 536–537.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

K. Matsumoto, K. Tanaka, Neuroscience. Conflict and cognitive control, Science 303 (2004) 969–970.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

M.S. Holm, S. Saravanamurugan, E. Taarning, Conversion of sugars to lactic acid derivatives using heterogeneous zeotype catalysts, Science 328 (2010) 602–605.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

A. Yamaguchi, S. Kobayashi, H. Ishimoto, H. Kojima, Minority spin condensate in the spin-polarized superfluid 3He A1 phase, Nature 444 (2006) 909–912.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

F. Gaffikin, M. Morrissey, Planning in Divided Cities: Collaborative Shaping of Contested Space, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK, 2011.

An edited book

[1]

E. Damiani, Open Source Systems Security Certification, Springer US, Boston, MA, 2009.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

G. Pezzulo, G. Baldassarre, M.V. Butz, C. Castelfranchi, J. Hoffmann, From Actions to Goals and Vice-Versa: Theoretical Analysis and Models of the Ideomotor Principle and TOTE, in: M.V. Butz, O. Sigaud, G. Pezzulo, G. Baldassarre (Eds.), Anticipatory Behavior in Adaptive Learning Systems: From Brains to Individual and Social Behavior, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2007: pp. 73–93.

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 Legal Medicine.

Blog post

[1]

J. Fang, Rare “Blond” Penguin Spotted in Antarctica, IFLScience (2014).

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, Women in STEM Research: Federal Agencies Differ in the Data They Collect on Grant Applicants, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2015.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

N.M. Daysal, The effects of uninsurance on hospitals and patient health, Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 2009.

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]

Sophia Kishkovsky; Compiled by, Arts, Briefly; A New Festival in Moscow, New York Times (2006) B8.

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	Legal Medicine
Abbreviation	Leg. Med. (Tokyo)
ISSN (print)	1344-6223
Scope	Pathology and Forensic Medicine Issues, ethics and legal aspects