How to format your references using the BMC Obesity citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Obesity. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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. Dennell R. Palaeoanthropology: Homo sapiens in China 80,000 years ago. Nature. 2015;526:647–8.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Suzuki S, Kimura H. Indirect reciprocity is sensitive to costs of information transfer. Sci Rep. 2013;3:1435.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Penner JE, Dong X, Chen Y. Observational evidence of a change in radiative forcing due to the indirect aerosol effect. Nature. 2004;427:231–4.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Bisson LF, Waterhouse AL, Ebeler SE, Walker MA, Lapsley JT. The present and future of the international wine industry. Nature. 2002;418:696–9.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Bishop CA. Roll-to-Roll Vacuum Deposition of Barrier Coatings. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2015.

An edited book

1. Gratch J, Young M, Aylett R, Ballin D, Olivier P, editors. Intelligent Virtual Agents: 6th International Conference, IVA 2006, Marina Del Rey, CA, USA, August 21-23, 2006. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2006.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Kim YS, Rachev ST, Bianchi ML, Fabozzi FJ. A New Tempered Stable Distribution and Its Application to Finance. In: Bol G, Rachev ST, Würth R, editors. Risk Assessment: Decisions in Banking and Finance. Heidelberg: Physica-Verlag HD; 2008. p. 77–109.

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 Obesity.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. Brilliant Gift Ideas For Science Fans. IFLScience. 2014. https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/science-gift-ideas/. 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. Transportation Security: TSA Has Made Progress in Implementing the Transportation Worker Identification Credential Program, but Challenges Remain. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2007.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Karyekar M. Translating observation into narration: The “sentimental” anthropology of Georg Forster (1754-1794). Doctoral dissertation. Indiana University; 2014.

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. de la MERCED MJ, Bray C. Rite Aid Will Sell Some Stores to Walgreens, Ending Plans to Merge. New York Times. 2017;:B2.

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 Obesity
Abbreviation	BMC Obes.
ISSN (online)	2052-9538
Scope