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. Marín O. Journal club. A developmental neurobiologist looks at how damage induces cell birth in the adult brain. Nature. 2010;465:401.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Blackburn TM, Duncan RP. Determinants of establishment success in introduced birds. Nature. 2001;414:195–7.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Mullen KT, Kim YJ, Gheiratmand M. Contrast normalization in colour vision: the effect of luminance contrast on colour contrast detection. Sci Rep. 2014;4:7350.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Walther P, Resch KJ, Rudolph T, Schenck E, Weinfurter H, Vedral V, et al. Experimental one-way quantum computing. Nature. 2005;434:169–76.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Van Fleet PJ. Discrete Wavelet Transformations. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2008.

An edited book

1. Odaka K, editor. The Myanmar Economy: Its Past, Present and Prospects. 1st ed. 2016. Tokyo: Springer Japan; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Simon HU. Spectral Norm in Learning Theory: Some Selected Topics. In: Todorovski L, Lavrač N, Jantke KP, editors. Discovery Science: 9th International Conference, DS 2006, Barcelona, Spain, October 7-10, 2006. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2006. p. 16–16.

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. Global Count Shows Tree Numbers Have Halved Since Dawn Of Human Civilisation. IFLScience. 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/global-count-shows-tree-numbers-have-halved-dawn-human-civilisation/. 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. GSA Lease Prospectuses Provide a Reasonable Basis for the Congress To Approve Proposed Space Acquisitions. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1980.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Limpert SM. A Qualitative Study of Learning Spaces at a Midwest Elementary School and its Relationship to Student Attitudes about Reading. Doctoral dissertation. Lindenwood University; 2017.

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. Vecsey G. Back to Brooklyn for a U.S. Eagle. New York Times. 2011;:SP10.

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

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