How to format your references using the World Medical Journal citation style

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

Takahashi T. Ocean science. The fate of industrial carbon dioxide. Science. 2004 Jul 16;305(5682):352–3.

A journal article with 2 authors

Logan BE, Rabaey K. Conversion of wastes into bioelectricity and chemicals by using microbial electrochemical technologies. Science. 2012 Aug 10;337(6095):686–90.

A journal article with 3 authors

Hansell DA, Kadko D, Bates NR. Degradation of terrigenous dissolved organic carbon in the western Arctic Ocean. Science. 2004 May 7;304(5672):858–61.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Takamoto M, Hong FL, Higashi R, Katori H. An optical lattice clock. Nature. 2005 May 19;435(7040):321–4.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hasslacher C, Böhm S. Diabetes and the Kidney. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2005.

An edited book

Kitamura Y, Edwards DB, Sitha C, Williams JH, editors. The Political Economy of Schooling in Cambodia: Issues of Quality and Equity. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan US; 2016. XII, 245 p. (International and Development Education).

A chapter in an edited book

Galdi V, Castaldi G, Fiumara V, Pierro V, Pinto IM, Felsen LB. High-Frequency/Short-Pulse Wave Dynamics in Ray-Chaotic Scenarios: A Survey. In: Göknar İC, Sevgi L, editors. Complex Computing-Networks: Brain-like and Wave-oriented Electrodynamic Algorithms. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2006. p. 37–43. (Springer Proceedings in Physics).

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 World Medical Journal.

Blog post

Davis J. They May be Huge, But Just How Deadly Are Huntsman Spiders? [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/they-may-be-huge-but-just-how-deadly-are-huntsman-spiders/

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. Year 2000 Computing Crisis: Readiness of the Electric Power Industry. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1999 Apr. Report No.: AIMD-99-114.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Holbert M. Knowledge is power (KIP): Kinship caregiver support group program curriculum [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

Cave D. Making History With Breast-Fed Meal in Parliament. New York Times. 2017 May 11;A6.

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	World Medical Journal
ISSN (print)	0049-8122
Scope