How to format your references using the PLOS Medicine citation style

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

Kitano H. Computational systems biology. Nature. 2002;420: 206–210.

A journal article with 2 authors

Esmaeili-Rad MR, Salahuddin S. High performance molybdenum disulfide amorphous silicon heterojunction photodetector. Sci Rep. 2013;3: 2345.

A journal article with 3 authors

Zhou Z, Barrett PM, Hilton J. An exceptionally preserved Lower Cretaceous ecosystem. Nature. 2003;421: 807–814.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Schroeter H, Holt RR, Orozco TJ, Schmitz HH, Keen CL. Nutrition: milk and absorption of dietary flavanols. Nature. 2003;426: 787–8; discussion 788.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Attokaran M. Natural Food Flavors and Colorants. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell; 2011.

An edited book

Virvou M, Jain LC, editors. Intelligent Interactive Systems in Knowledge-Based Environments. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2008.

A chapter in an edited book

Hobby BD, Wascher DC, Schenck RC. Classification of Knee Dislocations and the Surgical Implications. In: Fanelli GC, editor. The Multiple Ligament Injured Knee: A Practical Guide to Management. New York, NY: Springer; 2013. pp. 63–69.

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 PLOS Medicine.

Blog post

Andrew D. “Middle Child Syndrome” Isn’t What You Think — Here’s What It Really Means. In: IFLScience. IFLScience; 19 Jan 2017.

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. Gas Pipeline Safety: Preliminary Observations on the Implementation of the Integrity Management Program. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2006 Apr. Report No.: GAO-06-588T.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Bergemann E. Exploring psychotherapist empathic attunement from a psychoneurobiological perspective: Is empathy enhanced by yoga and meditation? Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute. 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

Greenhouse L. Justices Turn Aside Case of Man Accusing C.I.A. of Torture. New York Times. 10 Oct 2007: A20.

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	PLOS Medicine
Abbreviation	PLoS Med.
ISSN (print)	1549-1277
ISSN (online)	1549-1676
Scope	General Medicine