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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Medical Physics. 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. Anderson PW. Physics. Is there glue in cuprate superconductors? Science. 2007;316:1705–7.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Groisman A, Steinberg V. Efficient mixing at low Reynolds numbers using polymer additives. Nature. 2001;410:905–8.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Lai Y-T, Cascio D, Yeates TO. Structure of a 16-nm cage designed by using protein oligomers. Science. 2012;336:1129.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Fong LG, Frost D, Meta M, Qiao X, Yang SH, Coffinier C, et al. A protein farnesyltransferase inhibitor ameliorates disease in a mouse model of progeria. Science. 2006;311:1621–3.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Flaus J-M. Risk Analysis. Hoboken, NJ USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2013.

An edited book

1. Mandal DK, Syan CS, editors. CAD/CAM, Robotics and Factories of the Future: Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on CARs & FoF 2016. New Delhi: Springer India; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Murinson BB. The Role of Antidepressants in the Treatment of Chronic Pain. In: Deer TR, Leong MS, Gordin V, editors. Treatment of Chronic Pain by Medical Approaches: the AMERICAN ACADEMY of PAIN MEDICINE Textbook on Patient Management. New York, NY: Springer; 2015. p. 43–50.

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 Physics.

Blog post

1. Carpineti A. Gravitational Waves Observed For A Third Time. IFLScience. 2017. https://www.iflscience.com/space/gravitational-waves-observed-for-a-third-time/. 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. International Space Station: U.S. Life-Cycle Funding Requirements. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1998.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Moore AM. Assessing the demand for simplified stormwater modeling tools within the design profession to facilitate the adoption of sustainable stormwater practices. Doctoral dissertation. Mississippi State University; 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. Kepner T. 7th Inning? Bring In the Closer. New York Times. 2016;:B9.

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 Physics
ISSN (print)	1756-6649
Scope