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. Kürti L. Organic chemistry. Streamlining amine synthesis. Science. 2015;348:863–4.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Popp MW, Maquat LE. RNA. A TRICK’n way to see the pioneer round of translation. Science. 2015;347:1316–7.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Khan SUM, Al-Shahry M, Ingler WB Jr. Efficient photochemical water splitting by a chemically modified n-TiO2. Science. 2002;297:2243–5.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Houlahan JE, Findlay CS, Schmidt BR, Meyer AH, Kuzmin SL. Quantitative evidence for global amphibian population declines. Nature. 2000;404:752–5.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Bisen PS, Debnath M, Prasad GBKS. Microbes. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2012.

An edited book

1. Leite J, Torroni P, Ågotnes T, Boella G, Torre L van der, editors. Computational Logic in Multi-Agent Systems: 12th International Workshop, CLIMA XII, Barcelona, Spain, July 17-18, 2011. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Wrembel R, Bębel B. Metadata Management in a Multiversion Data Warehouse. In: Spaccapietra S, Atzeni P, Fages F, Hacid M-S, Kifer M, Mylopoulos J, et al., editors. Journal on Data Semantics VIII. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2007. p. 118–57.

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. Fang J. Why Do Dolphins and Whales Still Have Pelvic Bones? To Please the Ladies. IFLScience. 2014. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/why-do-dolphins-and-whales-still-have-pelvic-bones-please-ladies/. 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. Rail Transit: Additional Federal Leadership Would Enhance FTA’s State Safety Oversight Program. 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. Lucky-Medford L. A gendered approach to synaesthesia using the poetry of John Keats and Emily Dickinson. Doctoral dissertation. Florida Atlantic University; 2010.

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. Lanchester J. How Economic Gobbledygook Divides Us. New York Times. 2016;:MM18.

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

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