How to format your references using the Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases. 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. Andelman SJ. Conservation science outside the comfort zone. Nature. 2011;475:290–1.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Sutherland WJ, Burgman M. Policy advice: Use experts wisely. Nature. 2015;526:317–8.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Sun J-Y, Wu X-S, Wu L-G. Single and multiple vesicle fusion induce different rates of endocytosis at a central synapse. Nature. 2002;417:555–9.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Dubertret B, Skourides P, Norris DJ, Noireaux V, Brivanlou AH, Libchaber A. In vivo imaging of quantum dots encapsulated in phospholipid micelles. Science. 2002;298:1759–62.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Burd B. Java® For Dummies®. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing, Inc.; 2011.

An edited book

1. Grosse C, Ohtsu M, editors. Acoustic Emission Testing: Basics for Research - Applications in Civil Engineering. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2008.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Zbierski M. Iwazaru: The Byzantine Sequencer. In: Kubátová H, Hochberger C, Daněk M, Sick B, editors. Architecture of Computing Systems – ARCS 2013: 26th International Conference, Prague, Czech Republic, February 19-22, 2013 Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013. p. 38–49.

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 Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases.

Blog post

1. Carpineti A. Stephen Hawking Says We Should Be “Wary” About Contacting Aliens. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016.

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. Public Transportation: Multiple Factors Influence Extent of Transit-Oriented Development. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2014 Nov. Report No.: GAO-15-70.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Palmer CM. Intramural scheduling time preferences to increase student participation [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2010.

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. Crow K. Elegies for a Homeless Man By Friends He Left Behind. New York Times. 2001 Apr 15;147.

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	Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases
Abbreviation	Orphanet J. Rare Dis.
ISSN (online)	1750-1172
Scope	General Medicine Genetics(clinical) Pharmacology (medical)