How to format your references using the BMC Biophysics citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Biophysics. 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

1. Radick G. HISTORY OF SCIENCE. Beyond the “Mendel-Fisher controversy.” Science. 2015;350:159–60.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Paterson WS, Reeh N. Thinning of the ice sheet in northwest Greenland over the past forty years. Nature. 2001;414:60–2.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Yelshanskaya MV, Li M, Sobolevsky AI. Structure of an agonist-bound ionotropic glutamate receptor. Science. 2014;345:1070–4.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Altamirano MM, Blackburn JM, Aguayo C, Fersht AR. Directed evolution of new catalytic activity using the alpha/beta-barrel scaffold. Nature. 2000;403:617–22.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Paultre P. Dynamics of Structures. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2013.

An edited book

1. Ellerton NF. Abraham Lincoln’s Cyphering Book and Ten other Extraordinary Cyphering Books. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Bon C, Raudrant D. Use of Umbilical Venous Blood on Assessing the Biochemical Variations of Acid–Base, Nutritional and Metabolic Parameters on Growth-Retarded Fetuses, in Comparison with Gestational Control Cases: A Study. In: Bhattacharya N, Stubblefield P, editors. Regenerative Medicine Using Pregnancy-Specific Biological Substances. London: Springer; 2011. p. 31–41.

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 BMC Biophysics.

Blog post

1. Davis J. Paralyzed Man Able To Move His Arm With His Thoughts In World-First Procedure. IFLScience. 2017. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/paralyzed-man-able-to-move-his-arm-with-his-thoughts-in-worldfirst-procedure/. 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

1. Government Accountability Office. SEOG Funds: Information on the Distribution of SEOG Funds to Students. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1985.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Okada H. Modulation of BACE1 by a novel sorting nexin in Alzheimer’s disease. Doctoral dissertation. Columbia University; 2008.

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

1. Williams J. Faye Redux. New York Times. 2017;:BR4.

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	BMC Biophysics
Abbreviation	BMC Biophys.
ISSN (online)	2046-1682
Scope	Biophysics