How to format your references using the BMC Ophthalmology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Ophthalmology. 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. Page DP. Comment on “Athabasca Valles, Mars: a lava-draped channel system.” Science. 2008;320:1588; author reply 1588.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Reznick DN, Ricklefs RE. Darwin’s bridge between microevolution and macroevolution. Nature. 2009;457:837–42.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Kulmala M, Pirjola L, Makela JM. Stable sulphate clusters as a source of new atmospheric particles. Nature. 2000;404:66–9.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Zhang Y, Fan H, Xu J, Xiao Y, Xu Y, Li Y, et al. Network analysis reveals functional cross-links between disease and inflammation genes. Sci Rep. 2013;3:3426.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Lißner K, Rug W. Der Eurocode 5 für Deutschland Eurocode 5: Bemessung und Konstruktion von Holzbauten. Berlin, Germany: Wilhelm Ernst & Sohn Verlag für Architektur und technische Wissenschaften GmbH & Co. KG; 2016.

An edited book

1. Sirois FM, Molnar DS, editors. Perfectionism, Health, and Well-Being. 1st ed. 2016. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Gehrlein WV, Lepelley D. Other Voting Paradoxes. In: Lepelley D, editor. Voting Paradoxes and Group Coherence: The Condorcet Efficiency of Voting Rules. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011. p. 123–55.

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 Ophthalmology.

Blog post

1. Taub B. Scientists May Have Finally Figured Out What Causes Food Comas. IFLScience. 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/brain/scientists-finally-figured-out-causes-food-comas/. 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. Information and Technology Management: Achieving Sustained and Focused Governmentwide Leadership. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2001.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Cannon CA. Comparison of language arts scores between computerized and teacher differentiation of instruction. Doctoral dissertation. Capella University; 2017.

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. Greenhouse L. Court Rejects Interpretation Of Immigration Drug Law. New York Times. 2006;:A22.

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 Ophthalmology
Abbreviation	BMC Ophthalmol.
ISSN (online)	1471-2415
Scope	General Medicine Ophthalmology

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