How to format your references using the BJOG citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BJOG. 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	Download the output style file
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

Schoeninger MJ. Palaeoanthropology: the ancestral dinner table. Nature. 2012 Jul 4;487(7405):42–3.

A journal article with 2 authors

Zhang J, Chan FKM. Cell biology. RIPK3 takes another deadly turn. Science. 2014 Mar 21;343(6177):1322–3.

A journal article with 3 authors

Kumarevel T, Mizuno H, Kumar PKR. Structural basis of HutP-mediated anti-termination and roles of the Mg2+ ion and L-histidine ligand. Nature. 2005 Mar 10;434(7030):183–91.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Maharjan S, Oku M, Tsuda M, Hoseki J, Sakai Y. Mitochondrial impairment triggers cytosolic oxidative stress and cell death following proteasome inhibition. Sci Rep. 2014 Jul 31;4:5896.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Rossner W, Graubner CA. Spannbetonbauwerke. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2012.

An edited book

Ábrahám E, Havelund K, editors. Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems: 20th International Conference, TACAS 2014, Held as Part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2014, Grenoble, France, April 5-13, 2014. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2014. XVIII, 652 p. 142 illus. (Lecture Notes in Computer Science; vol. 8413).

A chapter in an edited book

Ching WK, Huang X, Ng MK, Siu TK. A Hidden Markov Model for Customer Classification. In: Huang X, Ng MK, Siu TK, editors. Markov Chains: Models, Algorithms and Applications. Boston, MA: Springer US; 2013. p. 97–106. (International Series in Operations Research & Management Science).

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 BJOG.

Blog post

Andrew E. Discovery Of Microbe-Rich Groundwater In Antarctica Could Guide Our Search For Life In Space [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/discovery-microbe-rich-groundwater-antarctica-could-guide-our-search-life-space/

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. Airline Competition: Strategies for Addressing Financial and Competitive Problems in the Airline Industry. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1993 Feb. Report No.: T-RCED-93-11.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Pryor GL. Effects of a balance-specific exercise program on blood pressure medication usage [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2013.

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

Wagner J. Mets, Shedding Veterans, Send Walker to Brewers. New York Times. 2017 Aug 13;SP5.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

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	BJOG
Abbreviation	BJOG
ISSN (print)	1470-0328
ISSN (online)	1471-0528
Scope	Obstetrics and Gynaecology