Cochrane Style Manual
Entering references

Reference fields

When references are entered manually in RevMan, different reference fields need to be completed (e.g. author(s), title, journal, page numbers etc.). Fields with bold headings are required, fields with greyed-out headings are optional. For guidance on content and presentation of the different reference fields, see the Reference fields section. Note that text formatting is applied to references entered in RevMan during the publishing process; for example, journal titles and book titles are converted to italic text on publication.

Reference types

References can be typed in manually or imported from files generated by standard bibliographic software or from the Cochrane Register of Studies. It is preferable to use the importing method. Different types of references can be entered into RevMan. See Overview of reference types.

For detailed examples of reference types and how to populate reference fields, see the Reference types section. If a reference does not fit into one of the available categories, select ‘Other’ and use the available fields in a way that gives an appropriately formatted reference. You can also refer to Citing Medicine, the National Library of Medicine’s guide for citing references, for other reference types, such as a patents, legal material, or journal articles with a retraction, comment, or erratum. See also Differences between Cochrane and NLM style.

Section info
Contact
Denise Mitchell (production@cochrane.org)
Describe change
Text added to reflect change to cumpulsory and option heading types in ref fields.
Change date
9 October 2024