How to format your references using the BMC Biotechnology citation style

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

1. Brockie B. GM cows face slaughter in multiple sclerosis experiment. Nature. 2001;411:402.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Phipps RJ, Gaunt MJ. A meta-selective copper-catalyzed C-H bond arylation. Science. 2009;323:1593–7.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Shipley B, Vile D, Garnier E. From plant traits to plant communities: a statistical mechanistic approach to biodiversity. Science. 2006;314:812–4.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Márton ML, Cordts S, Broadhvest J, Dresselhaus T. Micropylar pollen tube guidance by egg apparatus 1 of maize. Science. 2005;307:573–6.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Good PI. Introduction to Statistics through Resampling Methods and R/S-Plus®. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2005.

An edited book

1. Hüllermeier E, Link S, Fober T, Seeger B, editors. Scalable Uncertainty Management: 6th International Conference, SUM 2012, Marburg, Germany, September 17-19, 2012. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2012.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Andrade JM, Astudillo CA, Paredes R. Metric Space Searching Based on Random Bisectors and Binary Fingerprints. In: Traina AJM, Traina C, Cordeiro RLF, editors. Similarity Search and Applications: 7th International Conference, SISAP 2014, Los Cabos, Mexico, October 29-31, 2014. Proceedings. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014. p. 50–7.

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 Biotechnology.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. Researchers Find A Way To Make Jet Fuel Components From Fungus. IFLScience. 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/fungus-makes-components-jet-fuel/. 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. Information and Technology Management: Achieving Sustained and Focused Governmentwide Leadership. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2001.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Lavin EE. Discourse in monolingual and bilingual non-trial hearings. Doctoral dissertation. Indiana University; 2015.

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. St. John Kelly E. Building a Business, Quarter by Quarter. New York Times. 1998;:144.

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 Biotechnology
Abbreviation	BMC Biotechnol.
ISSN (online)	1472-6750
Scope	Biotechnology