How to format your references using the BMC Nursing citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Nursing. 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. Watt FM. Mammalian skin cell biology: at the interface between laboratory and clinic. Science. 2014;346:937–40.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Corma A, Serna P. Chemoselective hydrogenation of nitro compounds with supported gold catalysts. Science. 2006;313:332–4.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Costello MJ, May RM, Stork NE. Response to comments on “Can we name Earth’s species before they go extinct?” Science. 2013;341:237.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Xu Y, Qiao J, Hou X, Pan S. Plutonium in soils from northeast China and its potential application for evaluation of soil erosion. Sci Rep. 2013;3:3506.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Bonk CJ. The World is Open. San Francisco, CA, USA: Jossey-Bass; 2011.

An edited book

1. Ruggieri N, Tampone G, Zinno R, editors. Historical Earthquake-Resistant Timber Frames in the Mediterranean Area. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Cheung R. A Context-Aware Adaptation Model for Efficient Web Browsing on Mobile Devices. In: Kim T-H, Yang LT, Park JH, Chang AC-C, Vasilakos T, Yeo S-S, editors. Advances in Communication and Networking: Second International Conference on Future Generation Communication and Networking, FGCN 2008, Sanya, Hainan Island, China, December 13-15, 2008. Revised Selected Papers. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009. p. 41–54.

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 Nursing.

Blog post

1. Andrew D. Watch A Glass Mantis Eating Eating A Fly. IFLScience. 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/glass-mantis-eating/. 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. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Should Provide the Congress with More Information on the Pioneer Venus Project. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1977.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Peters A. The mark of gender: Depicting power and the female body in colonial Peru. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach; 2009.

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. Koblin J. 2 Shows Try to Shake Up Formula for Reality TV. New York Times. 2017;:B1.

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 Nursing
Abbreviation	BMC Nurs.
ISSN (online)	1472-6955
Scope	General Nursing