How to format your references using the BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders. 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. Ball P. Portrait of a molecule. Nature. 2003;421:421–2.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Fowler JH, Schreiber D. Biology, politics, and the emerging science of human nature. Science. 2008;322:912–4.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Tosi L, Teatini P, Strozzi T. Natural versus anthropogenic subsidence of Venice. Sci Rep. 2013;3:2710.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Lartigue C, Glass JI, Alperovich N, Pieper R, Parmar PP, Hutchison CA 3rd, et al. Genome transplantation in bacteria: changing one species to another. Science. 2007;317:632–8.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Safonov VO. Using Aspect-Oriented Programming for Trustworthy Software Development. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2007.

An edited book

1. Volchkov VV. Harmonic Analysis of Mean Periodic Functions on Symmetric Spaces and the Heisenberg Group. London: Springer; 2009.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Einav I, Nguyen GD. Micromechanical alternatives to phenomenological hardening plasticity. In: Kolymbas D, Viggiani G, editors. Mechanics of Natural Solids. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009. p. 85–104.

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 Musculoskeletal Disorders.

Blog post

1. Davis J. Serbian Orthodox Church Demands Museum Hands Over Ashes Of Nikola Tesla. IFLScience. 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/serbian-orthodox-church-demands-museum-hands-over-ashes-of-nikola-tesla/. 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. Space Program Safety: Funding for NASA’s Safety Organizations Should Be Centralized. 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. Robinson LM. Using Time-Resolved Photoluminescence Spectroscopy to Examine Exciton Dynamics in II-VI Semiconductor Nanostructures. Doctoral dissertation. University of Cincinnati; 2001.

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. Strauss B. Athletes Stand to Gain in a Settlement With the N.C.A.A. New York Times. 2017;:SP2.

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 Musculoskeletal Disorders
Abbreviation	BMC Musculoskelet. Disord.
ISSN (online)	1471-2474
Scope	Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Rheumatology