How to format your references using the BMC Cell Biology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Cell Biology. 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 reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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. Lander ES. Initial impact of the sequencing of the human genome. Nature. 2011;470:187–97.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Vaupel JW, Loichinger E. Redistributing work in aging Europe. Science. 2006;312:1911–3.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Yang X, Minton TK, Zhang DH. Chemistry. Rethinking chemical reactions at hyperthermal energies. Science. 2012;336:1650–1.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Jiao Y, Shi C, Edil BH, de Wilde RF, Klimstra DS, Maitra A, et al. DAXX/ATRX, MEN1, and mTOR pathway genes are frequently altered in pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. Science. 2011;331:1199–203.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. McMaster MC. Buying and Selling Laboratory Instruments. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2010.

An edited book

1. Rosales-Mendoza S, editor. Genetically Engineered Plants as a Source of Vaccines Against Wide Spread Diseases: An Integrated View. New York, NY: Springer; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Brüggemann R, Patil GP. Sensitivity and Ambiguity. In: Patil GP, editor. Ranking and Prioritization for Multi-indicator Systems: Introduction to Partial Order Applications. New York, NY: Springer; 2011. p. 43–55.

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 Cell Biology.

Blog post

1. Carpineti A. The Sky Is Alive With The Sound Of Stars. IFLScience. 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/space/the-sky-is-alive-with-the-sound-of-stars/. 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. Security: Breaches at Federal Agencies and Airports. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2000.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Maloney JL. Analyzing Students’ Personal Characteristics to Determine Study Outcomes. Doctoral dissertation. Lindenwood 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. Pastan L. The Bridge. New York Times. 2015;:MM28.

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 Cell Biology
Abbreviation	BMC Cell Biol.
ISSN (online)	1471-2121
Scope	Cell Biology