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. Dawkins R. Retrospective. George C. Williams (1926-2010). Science. 2010;330:49.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Kang J-H, Park Q-H. Fractional tunnelling resonance in plasmonic media. Sci Rep. 2013;3:2423.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Neumann G, Noda T, Kawaoka Y. Emergence and pandemic potential of swine-origin H1N1 influenza virus. Nature. 2009;459:931–9.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Niewoehner WA, Bergstrom A, Eichele D, Zuroff M, Clark JT. Digital analysis: Manual dexterity in Neanderthals. Nature. 2003;422:395.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Cyr KS. Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010 Administration. Indianapolis, IN, USA: Wiley Publishing, Inc.; 2010.

An edited book

1. Dutoit AH, McCall R, Mistrík I, Paech B, editors. Rationale Management in Software Engineering. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2006.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Dahlke C, Bork H-R. Soil Erosion and Soil Organic Carbon Storage on the Chinese Loess Plateau. In: Lal R, Lorenz K, Hüttl RF, Schneider BU, von Braun J, editors. Recarbonization of the Biosphere: Ecosystems and the Global Carbon Cycle. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2012. p. 83–98.

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. Andrew E. Sea-Level Rise Has Claimed Five Whole Islands In The Pacific: First Scientific Evidence. IFLScience. 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/sea-level-rise-has-claimed-five-whole-islands-pacific-first-scientific-evidence/. 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. Gas Pipeline Safety: Views on Proposed Legislation to Reauthorize Pipeline Safety Provisions. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2006.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Schluter KT. Hearing words without structure: Subliminal speech priming and the organization of the Moroccan Arabic lexicon. Doctoral dissertation. University of Arizona; 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. Greenhouse L. Justices, 5-4, Accept No Excuses From Inmate for Mistaken Late Filing of an Appeal. New York Times. 2007;:A18.

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