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

Wootton JT. Local interactions predict large-scale pattern in empirically derived cellular automata. Nature. 2001 Oct 25;413(6858):841–4.

A journal article with 2 authors

Hayes R, Weiss H. Epidemiology. Understanding HIV epidemic trends in Africa. Science. 2006 Feb 3;311(5761):620–1.

A journal article with 3 authors

Yoon JW, Song SH, Magnusson R. Ultrahigh-Q metallic nanocavity resonances with externally-amplified intracavity feedback. Sci Rep. 2014 Nov 20;4:7124.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Liu B, Bhatt D, Oltvai ZN, Greenberger JS, Bahar I. Significance of p53 dynamics in regulating apoptosis in response to ionizing radiation, and polypharmacological strategies. Sci Rep. 2014 Sep 1;4:6245.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Molloy M, Larner W. Fashioning Globalisation. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons; 2013.

An edited book

Hayat MA, editor. Tumors of the Central Nervous System, Volume 2: Gliomas: Glioblastoma (Part 2). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2011. XXII, 458 p. (Tumors of the Central Nervous System; vol. 2).

A chapter in an edited book

Czajka P, Mizak W. Hybrid Vision System for Diagnostics of Technical Objects and Processes. In: Szewczyk R, Zieliński C, Kaliczyńska M, editors. Progress in Automation, Robotics and Measuring Techniques: Volume 3 Measuring Techniques and Systems. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015. p. 27–37. (Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing).

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

Hale T. How Long Would It Take You To Fall Through Earth? [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/physics/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-fall-through-earth/

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. Serving the Congress and the Nation: Information Technology Information. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2001 Mar. Report No.: GAO-01-413SP.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Montano M. Supporting juvenile offenders reentering the community: A grant proposal project [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2010.

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

Crair B. Where Mark Twain Found Inspiration. New York Times. 2016 Aug 16;TR9.

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