How to format your references using the Medical Science Educator citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Medical Science Educator. 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

1. Kamionkowski M. Astrophysics: Gravity ripples chased. Nature. 2009;460:964–5.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Kuo SC, McGrath JL. Steps and fluctuations of Listeria monocytogenes during actin-based motility. Nature. 2000;407:1026–9.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Barnes SE, Ieda J, Maekawa S. Rashba spin-orbit anisotropy and the electric field control of magnetism. Sci Rep. 2014;4:4105.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Burgoyne JR, Madhani M, Cuello F, Charles RL, Brennan JP, Schröder E, et al. Cysteine redox sensor in PKGIa enables oxidant-induced activation. Science. 2007;317:1393–7.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Cremona C. Structural Performance. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2013.

An edited book

1. Glăveanu VP, Tanggaard L, Wegener C, editors. Creativity — A New Vocabulary. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Bray M, Jiang K. Comparing Systems. In: Bray M, Adamson B, Mason M, editors. Comparative Education Research: Approaches and Methods. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014. p. 139–66.

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 Medical Science Educator.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. NASA Hubble Telescope Sees A Storm In Lagoon Nebula. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015.

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. High-Containment Laboratories: Improved Oversight of Dangerous Pathogens Needed to Mitigate Risk. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2016 Aug. Report No.: GAO-16-642.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Parker DD. Uncovering Three Trumpet Works of Sofia Gubaidulina [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 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. Kelly DA. Advice to Mileage Misers: Use the Hoard Now. New York Times. 2006 Jul 30;TR6.

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	Medical Science Educator
Abbreviation	Med. Sci. Educ.
ISSN (online)	2156-8650
Scope