How to format your references using the BMC Nephrology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Nephrology. 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. Gregory RL. Perceptions of knowledge. Nature. 2001;410:21.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Raiborg C, Stenmark H. The ESCRT machinery in endosomal sorting of ubiquitylated membrane proteins. Nature. 2009;458:445–52.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Guler U, Boltasseva A, Shalaev VM. Applied physics. Refractory plasmonics. Science. 2014;344:263–4.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Montañez IP, Tabor NJ, Niemeier D, Dimichele WA, Frank TD, Fielding CR, et al. CO2-forced climate and vegetation instability during Late Paleozoic deglaciation. Science. 2007;315:87–91.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Heimann RB. Classic and Advanced Ceramics. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2010.

An edited book

1. LePage BA, Williams CJ, Yang H, editors. The Geobiology and Ecology of Metasequoia. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2005.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Jamet D, Lafrenière N, Provençal X. Generation of Digital Planes Using Generalized Continued-Fractions Algorithms. In: Normand N, Guédon J, Autrusseau F, editors. Discrete Geometry for Computer Imagery: 19th IAPR International Conference, DGCI 2016, Nantes, France, April 18-20, 2016. Proceedings. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. p. 45–56.

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 Nephrology.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. Scientists Want To Map Your Moggy’s Microbiome. IFLScience. 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/kitty-kickstarter-map-your-moggys-microbiome/. 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. Older Americans: Inability to Repay Student Loans May Affect Financial Security of a Small Percentage of Retirees. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2014.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. DeClerk CC. The relationship between retail store manager leadership styles and employee generational cohort, performance, and satisfaction. Doctoral dissertation. University of Phoenix; 2008.

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. Williams J, Kovaleski SF. Actor’s Past Surfaces in Prosecutors’ Investigation of Penn State. New York Times. 2016;:A1.

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 Nephrology
Abbreviation	BMC Nephrol.
ISSN (online)	1471-2369
Scope	Nephrology