Citation style

Scholarly publications use a wide variety of different formats for citing sources of previously published work. Usually there is a markup in the test such as a superscript indication the section to which the citation is relevant, appear just after the section, or perhaps at the end of the paragraph, where there may be more that one source indicated

The markup in the text may be a numeral a Roman numeral, or a letter. Alternatively the main authors plus a date, in parentheses (Smith, 1997) may be given. Variants are (Jones, 1997a) if Jones is cited for more than one 1997 article, and (Smith and Jones, 2000), and Timorof et al. 1927). Et al. is for et alia, meaning 'and others' in Latin, and is used if there are a large number of authors, say more than three. Perhaps today (Wu & others 2007) would be clearer.

With word processors it is now easy to develop a numbered citation series, and with Mediawiki software for examples there are several good tools for annotating text with citations and keepimng a master list of sources, usually near the ends of the article.

Attention needs to be given to giving unambigous information in the note that is made about the source. In paper published articles there is a premium on space, and many scholarly publishers will demand compact citation. This is less important in electronic journals.

Here are some examples of citations:

One accessible example is the internet publication Public Library of Science Biology (PLoS Biology) which is an Open Access journal.

They give the following guidelines for submitted manuscripts:

"PLoS uses the numbered citation (citation-sequence) method. References are listed and numbered in the order that they appear in the text. In the text, citations should be indicated by the reference number in brackets. Multiple citations within a single set of brackets should be separated by commas. Where there are more than three sequential citations, they should be given as a range. Example: "...has been shown previously [1,4–6,22]." Make sure the parts of the manuscript are in the correct order for the relevant journal before ordering the citations. Figure captions and tables should be at the end of the manuscript.

Because all references will be linked electronically as much as possible to the papers they cite, proper formatting of the references is crucial. For all references, list the first five authors; add "et al." if there are additional authors. You can include a DOI number for the full-text article as an alternative to or in addition to traditional volume and page numbers. Please use the following style for the reference list:

Published Papers

1. Sanger F, Nicklen S, Coulson AR (1977) DNA sequencing with chain-terminating inhibitors. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 74: 5463–5467.

Accepted Papers

Same as above, but "In press" appears instead of the page numbers. Example: Adv Clin Path. In press.

Electronic Journal Articles

1. Loker WM (1996) "Campesinos" and the crisis of modernization in Latin America. Jour Pol Ecol 3. Available: http://www.library.arizona.edu/ej/jpe/volume_3/ascii-lokeriso.txt. Accessed 11 August 2006.

Books

1. Bates B (1992) Bargaining for life: A social history of tuberculosis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 435 p.

Book Chapters

1. Hansen B (1991) New York City epidemics and history for the public. In: Harden VA, Risse GB, editors. AIDS and the historian. Bethesda: National Institutes of Health. pp. 21–28."

(End of direct quote from PLoS Biology)