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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Chemical 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 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. Bloodworth A. Resources: Track flows to manage technology-metal supply. Nature. 2014;505:19–20.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Frey BJ, Dueck D. Clustering by passing messages between data points. Science. 2007;315:972–6.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Wu W, Wen X, Wang ZL. Taxel-addressable matrix of vertical-nanowire piezotronic transistors for active and adaptive tactile imaging. Science. 2013;340:952–7.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Ahluwalia J, Tinker A, Clapp LH, Duchen MR, Abramov AY, Pope S, et al. The large-conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channel is essential for innate immunity. Nature. 2004;427:853–8.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Mowlaee P, Kulmer J, Stahl J, Mayer F. Single Channel Phase-Aware Signal Processing in Speech Communication: Theory and Practice. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2017.

An edited book

1. Hsu C-H, Yang LT, Ma J, Zhu C, editors. Ubiquitous Intelligence and Computing: 8th International Conference, UIC 2011, Banff, Canada, September 2-4, 2011. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Morganti R. Using HI Absorption to Trace Outflows from Galaxies and Feeding of AGN. In: Barbosa D, Anton S, Gurvits L, Maia D, editors. The Square Kilometre Array: Paving the way for the new 21st century radio astronomy paradigm: Proceedings of Symposium 7 of JENAM 2010. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2012. p. 31–42.

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 Chemical Biology.

Blog post

1. Luntz S. Neanderthal Immunity Genes Helped Us Conquer The Planet. IFLScience. 2016. 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. Effectiveness and Morale of the Colorado Wing of the Civil Air Patrol. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1976.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Cao L. A Field-Scale Simulation of the Reversible Nanoparticle Adsorption for Enhancing Oil Recovery Using Hydrophilic Nanofluids. Doctoral dissertation. University of Louisiana; 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. Scott M, Kanter J. E.U. Ruling Said to Aim at Tax Policy for Apple. New York Times. 2016;:B1.

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 Chemical Biology
ISSN (print)	1472-6769
Scope