How to format your references using the BMC Oral Health citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Oral Health. 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. Gormley WT Jr. From science to policy in early childhood education. Science. 2011;333:978–81.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Haushofer J, Fehr E. On the psychology of poverty. Science. 2014;344:862–7.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Zhou Z, Clarke JA, Zhang F. Archaeoraptor’s better half. Nature. 2002;420:285.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Clark JM, Xu X, Forster CA, Wang Y. A Middle Jurassic “sphenosuchian” from China and the origin of the crocodylian skull. Nature. 2004;430:1021–4.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Kuzmeski M. The Connectors. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2009.

An edited book

1. Lindert P, Verkoren O, editors. Decentralized Development in Latin America: Experiences in Local Governance and Local Development. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2010.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Brown KA, Simpson ER. Estrogen Biosynthesis. In: Simpson ER, editor. Obesity and Breast Cancer: The Role of Dysregulated Estrogen Metabolism. New York, NY: Springer; 2014. p. 17–35.

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 Oral Health.

Blog post

1. Fang J. Ancient Campfire Conversations Strengthened Human Culture. IFLScience. 2014. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/ancient-campfire-conversations-strengthened-human-culture/. 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. Cargo Tank Trucks: Improved Incident Data and Regulatory Analysis Would Better Inform Decisions about Safety Risks. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2013.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Glasgow HL. Design and Selection of Probes for In Vivo Molecular Targeting and Imaging. Doctoral dissertation. University of California San Diego; 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. Fink S, Risen J, Savage C. New Details of C.I.A. Torture, and a New Clash. New York Times. 2017;: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 Oral Health
Abbreviation	BMC Oral Health
ISSN (online)	1472-6831
Scope	General Dentistry