How to format your references using the National Medical Journal of China citation style

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

Mandavilli A. India. Nature. 2005 Jul 28;436(7050):477.

A journal article with 2 authors

Fragoso G, Spencer T. Physiographic control on the development of Spartina marshes. Science. 2008 Nov 14;322(5904):1064.

A journal article with 3 authors

Storch D, Marquet PA, Gaston KJ. Ecology. Untangling an entangled bank. Science. 2005 Feb 4;307(5710):684–6.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Bukowski R, Szalewicz K, Groenenboom GC, van der Avoird A. Predictions of the properties of water from first principles. Science. 2007 Mar 2;315(5816):1249–52.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hannam J. What Everyone Needs to Know about Tax. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2017.

An edited book

Nam GJ, Cong J, editors. Modern Circuit Placement: Best Practices and Results. Boston, MA: Springer US; 2007. XX, 324 p. (Series on Integrated Circuits and Systems).

A chapter in an edited book

Erradi A, Maheshwari P, Tosic V. Policy-Driven Middleware for Self-adaptation of Web Services Compositions. In: Steen M van, Henning M, editors. Middleware 2006: ACM/IFIP/USENIX 7th International Middleware Conference, Melbourne, Australia, November 27-December 1, 2006 Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2006. p. 62–80. (Lecture Notes in Computer Science).

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 National Medical Journal of China.

Blog post

Andrew E. Forest Loss Has Halved In The Past 30 Years, Latest Global Update Shows [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/forest-loss-has-halved-past-30-years-latest-global-update-shows/

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. Observations on the National School Lunch Program’s Assessment, Improvement, and Monitoring System. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1983 Sep. Report No.: 124037.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Alsubaihi SI. Challenges for women academic leaders to obtain senior leadership positions in higher education in Saudi Arabia [Doctoral dissertation]. [Malibu, CA]: Pepperdine University; 2016.

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

Shear MD. How I Learned Comey Was Out. New York Times. 2017 May 11;A2.

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	National Medical Journal of China
ISSN (print)	0376-2491
Scope