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. Paytan A. Geochemistry. Mountains, weathering, and climate. Science. 2012;335:810–1.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Li G, Zhang J. Ultra-broadband and efficient surface plasmon polariton launching through metallic nanoslits of subwavelength period. Sci Rep. 2014;4:5914.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Pfeffer WT, Harper JT, O’Neel S. Kinematic constraints on glacier contributions to 21st-century sea-level rise. Science. 2008;321:1340–3.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Kramer SG, Kidd T, Simpson JH, Goodman CS. Switching repulsion to attraction: changing responses to slit during transition in mesoderm migration. Science. 2001;292:737–40.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Ramirez J. Accounting for Derivatives. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2015.

An edited book

1. El Saddik A. Haptics Technologies: Bringing Touch to Multimedia. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Jellinger K, Krismer F. Aetiopathogenesis. In: Wenning GK, Fanciulli A, editors. Multiple System Atrophy. Vienna: Springer; 2014. p. 57–81.

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. Andrews R. El Niño Has Definitely Ended, But Climate Change Nightmares Are Here To Stay. IFLScience. 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/el-nino-definitely-ended-climate-change-nightmares-here-stay/. 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. A Summary of the Legislative Provisions of the Block Grants Created by the 1981 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1982.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Pobat M. It is all in the Mind of the Manager—Using Cognitive Complexity to Explore the Global Mindset—A Comparative Case Study. Doctoral dissertation. George Washington University; 2012.

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. Wasik JF. Choosing a Place to Settle Down in the Age of Fitbit. New York Times. 2016;:B4.

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