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. Smaglik P. Up for review. Nature. 2004;430:591.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Gluckman PD, Hanson MA. Living with the past: evolution, development, and patterns of disease. Science. 2004;305:1733–6.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Elbelrhiti H, Claudin P, Andreotti B. Field evidence for surface-wave-induced instability of sand dunes. Nature. 2005;437:720–3.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Duncan RR, Greaves J, Wiegand UK, Matskevich I, Bodammer G, Apps DK, et al. Functional and spatial segregation of secretory vesicle pools according to vesicle age. Nature. 2003;422:176–80.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Yu J. Way of the Trade. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2013.

An edited book

1. Zsolnai L, editor. Spirituality and Ethics in Management. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Kumar KPK, Geethakumari G. Analysis of Semantic Attacks in Online Social Networks. In: Martínez Pérez G, Thampi SM, Ko R, Shu L, editors. Recent Trends in Computer Networks and Distributed Systems Security: Second International Conference, SNDS 2014, Trivandrum, India, March 13-14, 2014, Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2014. 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 Neuroscience.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. Poll Shows 41% of American Adults Believe Antibiotics Treat Viruses. IFLScience. 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/poll-shows-41-american-adults-believe-antibiotics-treat-viruses/. 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. Women in STEM Research: Federal Agencies Differ in the Data They Collect on Grant Applicants. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2015.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Zitko JA. Effects of Random Cross-Sectioned Distributions, Fiber Misalignment and Interphases in Three-Dimensional Composite Models on Transverse Shear Modulus. Doctoral dissertation. University of South Florida; 2012.

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. Rutenberg J. News Outlets Wonder Where They Stumbled. 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 Neuroscience
Abbreviation	BMC Neurosci.
ISSN (online)	1471-2202
Scope	General Neuroscience Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience

Research and Writing Guides