How to format your references using the Rare Diseases citation style

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

Morton O. PARTICLE PHYSICS: The Final Tally Leaves LEP a Probable Loser. Science 2000; 290:1274a.

A journal article with 2 authors

Walczyk T, von Blanckenburg F. Natural iron isotope variations in human blood. Science 2002; 295:2065–6.

A journal article with 3 authors

Jackson DE, Holcombe M, Ratnieks FLW. Trail geometry gives polarity to ant foraging networks. Nature 2004; 432:907–9.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Lelieveld J, Bourtsoukidis E, Brühl C, Fischer H, Fuchs H, Harder H, Hofzumahaus A, Holland F, Marno D, Neumaier M, et al. The South Asian monsoon-pollution pump and purifier. Science 2018; 361:270–3.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hezaveh A. SAS® 9 Study Guide. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2007.

An edited book

Bentrem D, Benson AB, editors. Gastrointestinal Malignancies. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

Abrahams VM, Borghi MO, Meroni PL, Rand JH, Raschi E, Salmon JE, Tedesco F, Tincani A. What is the Mechanism(s) of Antiphospholipid Antibody-Mediated Pregnancy Morbidity? In: Erkan D, Pierangeli SS, editors. Antiphospholipid Syndrome: Insights and Highlights from the 13th International Congress on Antiphospholipid Antibodies. Boston, MA: Springer US; 2012. page 79–101.

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 Rare Diseases.

Blog post

Andrew E. Watch These Trees Get Swallowed By An Underwater Sinkhole [Internet]. IFLScience2014 [cited 2018 Oct 30]; Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/watch-these-trees-get-swallowed-louisiana-sinkhole/

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. Intelligent Transportation Systems: Survey of Transit Providers Serving Small Urban and Rural Areas (GAO-16-639SP, June 21, 2016), an E-supplement to GAO-16-638. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2016.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Cuomo AP. SB 48 and social media: Constituing an audience for and against California’s LGBT education legislation. 2013;

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. In Court Ruling On Executions, A Factual Flaw. New York Times2008; :A1.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

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	Rare Diseases
Abbreviation	Rare Dis.
ISSN (online)	2167-5511
Scope	General Medicine