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

Freeman MR (2010) Specification and morphogenesis of astrocytes. Science 330:774–778

A journal article with 2 authors

Moscou MJ, Bogdanove AJ (2009) A simple cipher governs DNA recognition by TAL effectors. Science 326:1501

A journal article with 3 authors

Rich TH, Vickers-Rich P, Gangloff RA (2002) Paleontology. Polar dinosaurs. Science 295:979–980

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Chen Y, Deng K, Qiu X, Wang C (2013) Visualizing cyclic peptide hydration at the single-molecule level. Sci Rep 3:2461

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Duffy DJ (2006) Introduction to C++ for Financial Engineers. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Oxford, UK

An edited book

Srivastava A (2005) Statistical Analysis and Optimization for VLSI: Timing and Power. Springer US, Boston, MA

A chapter in an edited book

Hazarika M, Dixit US (2015) A Fuzzy Set Based Setup Planning Methodology. In: Dixit US (ed) Setup Planning for Machining. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 67–89

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

Taub B (2017) Why Do We Get Allergies? In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/why-do-we-get-allergies/. 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 (1999) Schools And Libraries Program: Actions Taken to Improve Operational Procedures Prior to Committing Funds. 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

Tafoya A (2010) Impact of HIV/AIDS stigma on seropositive Latinos along the United States-Mexico border. 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

Feeney K (2011) Irish Soda Bread, Family Style. New York Times NJ10

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