Questions From Users of the Manual

Q: Does your style require parenthetical page numbers after the superscript citation of the reference number on all references or just direct quotations?

A: The manual does not “require” page numbers with any in-text citations. If an author wishes to cite different page numbers from a single reference source at different places in the text, the page number or page numbers may be included in the superscript citation and the source appears only once in the reference list. The superscript may include more than a single page number and/or citation of more than a single reference, and all spaces are closed up.

  • These patients showed no sign of protective sphincteric adduction.3(p21),9
  • Westman5(pp3,5) reported 8 cases in which vomiting occurred.

An author may also wish to use such a reference to an exact page after citing a quotation, directing the reader to the page on which the quotation appears. See section 3.6  for more details on this point.

Q: When a reference is cited in the text and the author is named as part of the citation, how should a 2-author citation be mentioned? Or a citation involving 3 or more authors?

A: We recommend the following:

  • Doe and Roe8 reported on the survey.
  • Doe et al10 reported on the survey.

Of course it is also acceptable to cite a reference and not give an author’s name (or authors’ names) in the text, or to use “and colleagues” or “and associates” or similar phrases rather than “et al.”  See the examples below and section 3.7 for more on this.

  • Several investigators13-16 corroborated these findings.
  • Friedman and colleagues11 reported on this at the 2011 American Heart Association meeting.—Cheryl Iverson, MA

 

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