How to format your references using the Biological Trace Element Research citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Biological Trace Element Research. 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 references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles 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

Hoffert M (2011) Governments must pay for clean-energy innovation. Nature 472:137

A journal article with 2 authors

Turner BL, Haygarth PM (2001) Biogeochemistry. Phosphorus solubilization in rewetted soils. Nature 411:258

A journal article with 3 authors

Pearson PN, Foster GL, Wade BS (2009) Atmospheric carbon dioxide through the Eocene-Oligocene climate transition. Nature 461:1110–1113

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Wu X, Yang Z-Y, Li Y, et al (2010) Rational design of envelope identifies broadly neutralizing human monoclonal antibodies to HIV-1. Science 329:856–861

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Huddleston R (2010) Android® Fully Loaded. Wiley Publishing, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Bagchi A, Ray I (2013) Information Systems Security: 9th International Conference, ICISS 2013, Kolkata, India, December 16-20, 2013. Proceedings. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

A chapter in an edited book

Trinh NH, Lester J, Fleming BC, et al (2006) Accurate Measurement of Cartilage Morphology Using a 3D Laser Scanner. In: Beichel RR, Sonka M (eds) Computer Vision Approaches to Medical Image Analysis: Second International ECCV Workshop, CVAMIA 2006 Graz, Austria, May 12, 2006 Revised Papers. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 37–48

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 Biological Trace Element Research.

Blog post

Luntz S (2014) Amazing Animation Compares The Mass Of Various Objects In The Solar System. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/amazing-animation-compares-mass-various-objects-solar-system/. Accessed 30 Oct 2018

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 (1989) Computer Procurement: FAA’s $1.5-Billion Computer Resources Nucleus Project. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Henderson R (2010) The effect of Interactive Metronome training on sports confidence and putting performance. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach

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

Powell M (2017) The Provocateur President Meets Athletes’ Resolve. New York Times SP1

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	Biological Trace Element Research
Abbreviation	Biol. Trace Elem. Res.
ISSN (print)	0163-4984
ISSN (online)	1559-0720
Scope	Biochemistry Clinical Biochemistry Inorganic Chemistry General Medicine Biochemistry, medical Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism