How to format your references using the BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine. 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. Meinwald J. Retrospective. Thomas Eisner (1929-2011). Science. 2011;332:549.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Ramirez Rozzi FV, Bermudez De Castro JM. Surprisingly rapid growth in Neanderthals. Nature. 2004;428:936–9.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Tilmann F, Ni J, INDEPTH III Seismic Team. Seismic imaging of the downwelling Indian lithosphere beneath central Tibet. Science. 2003;300:1424–7.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Plath K, Fang J, Mlynarczyk-Evans SK, Cao R, Worringer KA, Wang H, et al. Role of histone H3 lysine 27 methylation in X inactivation. Science. 2003;300:131–5.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Meinert CL. Clinical Trials Dictionary. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2012.

An edited book

1. Palese P, editor. Modulation of Host Gene Expression and Innate Immunity by Viruses. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2005.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Reichmuth C. Psychophysical Studies of Auditory Masking in Marine Mammals: Key Concepts and New Directions. In: Popper AN, Hawkins A, editors. The Effects of Noise on Aquatic Life. New York, NY: Springer; 2012. p. 23–7.

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 Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Blog post

1. Fang J. Renewables Now Produce 22 Percent of the World’s Electricity. IFLScience. 2014. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/renewables-now-produce-22-percent-worlds-electricity/. 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. An Analysis of Concerns in Federal Education Programs: Duplication of Services and Administrative Costs. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1980.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Richey B. Exploration of a Tandem Diels-Alder Ugi-Smiles Reaction. Doctoral dissertation. Southern Illinois University; 2014.

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. Chira S. A New Rating For Portrayals Of Gender. New York Times. 2017;:C1.

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 Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Abbreviation	BMC Complement. Altern. Med.
ISSN (online)	1472-6882
Scope	General Medicine Complementary and alternative medicine