How to format your references using the BMC Dermatology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Dermatology. 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. O’Connor SE. PLANT BIOCHEMISTRY. Fighting cancer while saving the mayapple. Science. 2015;349:1167–8.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Hespos SJ, Spelke ES. Conceptual precursors to language. Nature. 2004;430:453–6.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Ostojic S, Somfai E, Nienhuis B. Scale invariance and universality of force networks in static granular matter. Nature. 2006;439:828–30.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Wang H-J, Xi X-K, Kleinhammes A, Wu Y. Temperature-induced hydrophobic-hydrophilic transition observed by water adsorption. Science. 2008;322:80–3.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Rabe JL, Martorana RJ. Alts Democratized. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc; 2014.

An edited book

1. Michard A, Saddiqi O, Chalouan A, Lamotte DF de, editors. Continental Evolution: The Geology of Morocco: Structure, Stratigraphy, and Tectonics of the Africa-Atlantic-Mediterranean Triple Junction. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2008.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Mei Y, Goenezen S. Spatially Weighted Objective Function to Solve the Inverse Elasticity Problem for the Elastic Modulus. In: Doyle B, Miller K, Wittek A, Nielsen PMF, editors. Computational Biomechanics for Medicine: New Approaches and New Applications. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015. p. 47–58.

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 Dermatology.

Blog post

1. Davis J. China To Ban All Trade In Ivory By End Of 2017. IFLScience. 2017. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/china-to-ban-all-trade-in-ivory-by-end-of-2017/. 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. Aviation Security: FAA Can Help Ensure That Airports’ Access Control Systems Are Cost-Effective. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1995.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Nunn TN. A Puer–Senex Archetypal Model of the Therapeutic Relationship. Doctoral dissertation. Pacifica Graduate Institute; 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. Glassman JK. The G.O.P. Needs You: Vote Clinton. New York Times. 2016;:A21.

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 Dermatology
Abbreviation	BMC Dermatol.
ISSN (online)	1471-5945
Scope	Dermatology