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. Mattsson AE. Density functional theory. In pursuit of the “divine” functional. Science. 2002;298:759–60.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Droser ML, Gehling JG. Synchronous aggregate growth in an abundant new Ediacaran tubular organism. Science. 2008;319:1660–2.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Dandekar AA, Chugani S, Greenberg EP. Bacterial quorum sensing and metabolic incentives to cooperate. Science. 2012;338:264–6.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. McEvilly RJ, de Diaz MO, Schonemann MD, Hooshmand F, Rosenfeld MG. Transcriptional regulation of cortical neuron migration by POU domain factors. Science. 2002;295:1528–32.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Stenholm S, Suominen K-A. Quantum Approach to Informatics. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2005.

An edited book

1. Bagarello F, Passante R, Trapani C, editors. Non-Hermitian Hamiltonians in Quantum Physics: Selected Contributions from the 15th International Conference on Non-Hermitian Hamiltonians in Quantum Physics, Palermo, Italy, 18-23 May 2015. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Marinca V, Herisanu N. The Third Alternative of the Optimal Homotopy Asymptotic Method. In: Herisanu N, editor. The Optimal Homotopy Asymptotic Method: Engineering Applications. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015. p. 391–465.

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. Hale T. How To Have A Happy Sex Life With Your Partner, According To Science. IFLScience. 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/brain/how-to-have-a-happy-sex-life-with-your-partner-according-to-science/. 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. Improved Planning--A Must Before a Department-Wide Automatic Data Processing System Is Acquired for the Department of Agriculture. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1975.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Cervantes I. Flexural retrofitting of reinforced concrete structures using Green Natural Fiber Reinforced Polymer plates. 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. Barry E. Shaky Economy Dims Russian Prospects. New York Times. 2008;:A5.

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