How to format your references using the BMC Gastroenterology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Gastroenterology. 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. Wine JJ. Medicine. Letting go of mucus. Science. 2014;345:730–1.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Byers J, Dunn S. Response to comments on “Bateman in nature: predation on offspring reduces the potential for sexual selection.” Science. 2013;340:549.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Martinón-Torres M, Rehren T, Freestone IC. Mullite and the mystery of Hessian wares. Nature. 2006;444:437–8.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Baimuratov AS, Rukhlenko ID, Turkov VK, Ponomareva IO, Leonov MY, Perova TS, et al. Level anticrossing of impurity states in semiconductor nanocrystals. Sci Rep. 2014;4:6917.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Tasman A, Kay J, Ursano RJ. The Psychiatric Interview. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons; 2013.

An edited book

1. Losada DE, Fernández-Luna JM, editors. Advances in Information Retrieval: 27th European Conference on IR Research, ECIR 2005, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, March 21-23, 2005. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2005.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Reddy S, Shilton K, Burke J, Estrin D, Hansen M, Srivastava M. Using Context Annotated Mobility Profiles to Recruit Data Collectors in Participatory Sensing. In: Choudhury T, Quigley A, Strang T, Suginuma K, editors. Location and Context Awareness: 4th International Symposium, LoCA 2009 Tokyo, Japan, May 7-8, 2009 Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009. p. 52–69.

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 Gastroenterology.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. Five Ways Science Can Help You Raise Healthy Children. IFLScience. 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/five-ways-science-can-help-you-raise-healthy-children/. 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. Export Control: Army Guidance on Cooperative Research and Development Agreement Compliance with Export Control Laws and Regulations. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2002.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Andrews A. Yoga as mental health treatment for cancer survivors: A grant proposal. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach; 2013.

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. Kelly K. From Wall Street to National Mall. New York Times. 2017;: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 Gastroenterology
Abbreviation	BMC Gastroenterol.
ISSN (online)	1471-230X
Scope	General Medicine Gastroenterology