How to format your references using the BMC Neuroscience citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Neuroscience. 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. Marder E. Moving rhythms. Nature. 2001;410:755.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. John B, Hunter CA. Immunology. Neutrophil soldiers or Trojan Horses? Science. 2008;321:917–8.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Oppo DW, Rosenthal Y, Linsley BK. 2,000-year-long temperature and hydrology reconstructions from the Indo-Pacific warm pool. Nature. 2009;460:1113–6.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Rose CR, Blum R, Pichler B, Lepier A, Kafitz KW, Konnerth A. Truncated TrkB-T1 mediates neurotrophin-evoked calcium signalling in glia cells. Nature. 2003;426:74–8.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Best P. Implementing Value at Risk. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2005.

An edited book

1. Amer-Yahia S, Bellahsène Z, Hunt E, Unland R, Yu JX, editors. Database and XML Technologies: 4th International XML Database Symposium, XSym 2006 Seoul, Korea, September 10-11, 2006 Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2006.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Miller W, de Wit MJ, Linol B, Armstrong R. New Structural Data and U/Pb Dates from the Gamtoos Complex and Lowermost Cape Supergroup of the Eastern Cape Fold Belt, in Support of a Southward Paleo-Subduction Polarity. In: Linol B, de Wit MJ, editors. Origin and Evolution of the Cape Mountains and Karoo Basin. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. p. 35–44.

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 Neuroscience.

Blog post

1. Hamilton K. Brazil’s Sewage Woes Reflect The Growing Global Water Quality Crisis. IFLScience. 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/brazils-sewage-woes-reflect-the-growing-global-water-quality-crisis/. 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. Drug Education: School-Based Programs Seen as Useful but Impact Unknown. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1990.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Marchek SP. A quantitative investigation of the Technology Obsolescence Model (TOM) factors that influence the decision to replace obsolete systems. Doctoral dissertation. Capella University; 2015.

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. Schwartz J. Apologies. Really. And I Will Definitely Grow Up. New York Times. 2017;:BU14.

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 Neuroscience
Abbreviation	BMC Neurosci.
ISSN (online)	1471-2202
Scope	General Neuroscience Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience