How to format your references using the BMC Medical Genetics citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Medical Genetics. 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. Yang X. An embryonic nation. Nature. 2004;428:210–2.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Goldfine H, Vance DE. Obituary: Konrad E. Bloch (1912-2000). Nature. 2001;409:779.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Fox CG, Chadwick WW Jr, Embley RW. Direct observation of a submarine volcanic eruption from a sea-floor instrument caught in a lava flow. Nature. 2001;412:727–9.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Schietinger A, Philip M, Yoshida BA, Azadi P, Liu H, Meredith SC, et al. A mutant chaperone converts a wild-type protein into a tumor-specific antigen. Science. 2006;314:304–8.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Mullaney MD. The Complete Guide to Option Strategies. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2009.

An edited book

1. Anderson RE, LaVail MM, Hollyfield JG, editors. Recent Advances in Retinal Degeneration. New York, NY: Springer; 2008.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Stan A, Pop F-C, Cremene M, Giurgiu M, Pallez D. Interactive Intonation Optimisation Using CMA-ES and DCT Parameterisation of the F0 Contour for Speech Synthesis. In: Pelta DA, Krasnogor N, Dumitrescu D, Chira C, Lung R, editors. Nature Inspired Cooperative Strategies for Optimization (NICSO 2011). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2012. p. 57–71.

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 Medical Genetics.

Blog post

1. O`Callaghan J. NASA Says Russian Spacecraft Explosion Will Not Affect Space Station Operations. IFLScience. 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/space/nasa-says-russian-spacecraft-explosion-will-not-affect-space-station-operations/. 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. Highway Financing: Participating States Benefit Under Toll Facilities Pilot Program. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1990.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Janpengpen A. Monitoring and forecasting biosolids odors at prior lime and post lime addition in wastewater treatment plants. Doctoral dissertation. University of Maryland, College Park; 2010.

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. Justices Let U.S. Transfer Padilla to Civilian Custody. New York Times. 2006;:A22.

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 Medical Genetics
Abbreviation	BMC Med. Genet.
ISSN (online)	1471-2350
Scope	Genetics Genetics(clinical)