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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Developmental 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. Lindley D. Questions of direction. Nature. 2001;410:305.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Valenzuela SO, Tinkham M. Direct electronic measurement of the spin Hall effect. Nature. 2006;442:176–9.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Woodward JJ, Iavarone AT, Portnoy DA. c-di-AMP secreted by intracellular Listeria monocytogenes activates a host type I interferon response. Science. 2010;328:1703–5.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Silliman BR, van de Koppel J, Bertness MD, Stanton LE, Mendelssohn IA. Drought, snails, and large-scale die-off of southern U.S. salt marshes. Science. 2005;310:1803–6.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Haas TC. Improving Natural Resource Management. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2011.

An edited book

1. Bokulich A, Bokulich P, editors. Scientific Structuralism. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Núñez H, Angulo C, Català A. Rule Extraction Based on Support and Prototype Vectors. In: Diederich J, editor. Rule Extraction from Support Vector Machines. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2008. p. 109–34.

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 Developmental Biology.

Blog post

1. Hale T. India Has Planted Nearly 50 Million Trees In 24 Hours. IFLScience. 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/india-has-planted-nearly-50-million-trees-in-24-hours/. 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. Airport Improvement Program: Better Management Needed for Funds Provided Under Letters of Intent. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1994.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Krisher J. Cell-Matrix Interaction: Activation of the MAP Kinase Signaling Pathway in Salivary Gland Cells. Doctoral dissertation. Southern Illinois University; 2017.

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. Grynbaum MM. Trump, in Latest Bout With Media, Conjures Physical Fight With a Foe. New York Times. 2017;:A10.

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 Developmental Biology
Abbreviation	BMC Dev. Biol.
ISSN (online)	1471-213X
Scope	Developmental Biology

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