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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Evolutionary 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. Gomez N. Climate science: Small glacier has big effect on sea-level rise. Nature. 2015;526:510–2.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Hansson GK, Björkholm M. Medicine. Tackling two diseases with HDL. Science. 2010;328:1641–2.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Lehmann S, Jackson AD, Lautrup BE. Measures for measures. Nature. 2006;444:1003–4.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Rose BC, Huang D, Zhang Z-H, Stevenson P, Tyryshkin AM, Sangtawesin S, et al. Observation of an environmentally insensitive solid-state spin defect in diamond. Science. 2018;361:60–3.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Leleux B, van Swaay H, Megally E. Private Equity 4.0. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2015.

An edited book

1. Wyrzykowski R, Dongarra J, Karczewski K, Wasniewski J, editors. Parallel Processing and Applied Mathematics: 8th International Conference, PPAM 2009, Wroclaw, Poland, September 13-16, 2009. Revised Selected Papers, Part I. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2010.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Croog VJ, Zelefsky MJ. Pathophysiology of Erectile Dysfunction Following Radiation Therapy. In: Mulhall JP, editor. Sexual Function in the Prostate Cancer Patient. Totowa, NJ: Humana Press; 2009. p. 55–67.

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 Evolutionary Biology.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. Could One Million Smart Pool Pumps ‘Store’ Renewable Energy Better Than Giant Batteries? IFLScience. 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/could-one-million-smart-pool-pumps-store-renewable-energy-better-giant-batteries/. 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. Pipeline Safety:Collecting Data and Sharing Information on Federally Unregulated Gathering Pipelines Could Help Enhance Safety. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2012.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Bauer SL. Work-Life Balanced Culture, Work Flexibility, and Inducements: Impact on Perceived Organizational Attractiveness and Job Pursuit Intention. 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. Greenhouse L. IN REVERSAL OF COURSE, JUSTICES, 5-4, BACK BAN ON ABORTION METHOD. New York Times. 2007;:A1.

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 Evolutionary Biology
Abbreviation	BMC Evol. Biol.
ISSN (online)	1471-2148
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics