How to format your references using the BMC Neurology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Neurology. 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. Vunjak-Novakovic G. Cardiac biology: A protein for healing infarcted hearts. Nature. 2015;525:461–2.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Halloran ME, Longini IM Jr. Public health. Community studies for vaccinating schoolchildren against influenza. Science. 2006;311:615–6.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Krug AZ, Jablonski D, Valentine JW. Signature of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction in the modern biota. Science. 2009;323:767–71.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Cohen O, Bartal G, Buljan H, Carmon T, Fleischer JW, Segev M, et al. Observation of random-phase lattice solitons. Nature. 2005;433:500–3.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Halloran M, Thies C. The Social Media Handbook for Financial Advisors. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2012.

An edited book

1. Shafferman A, Ordentlich A, Velan B, editors. The Challenge of Highly Pathogenic Microorganisms: Mechanisms of Virulence and Novel Medical Countermeasures. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2010.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Broekel T, Hartog M. Determinants of Cross-Regional R&D Collaboration Networks: An Application of Exponential Random Graph Models. In: Scherngell T, editor. The Geography of Networks and R&D Collaborations. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2013. p. 49–70.

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 Neurology.

Blog post

1. Carpineti A. A Blob And A Bubble Tell Us The History Of A Supermassive Black Hole. IFLScience. 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/space/a-blob-and-a-bubble-tell-us-the-history-of-a-supermassive-black-hole/. 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. Bureau of Indian Affairs Schools: New Facilities Management Information System Promising, but Improved Data Accuracy Needed. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2003.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Chanderbhan-Forde S. Asian Indian mothers’ involvement in their children’s schooling: An analysis of social and cultural capital. Doctoral dissertation. University of South Florida; 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. Shpigel B. Finally on Big Stage, Predators Stumble in an Uneven Performance. New York Times. 2017;:B9.

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 Neurology
Abbreviation	BMC Neurol.
ISSN (online)	1471-2377
Scope	General Medicine Clinical Neurology

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