How to format your references using the BMC Palliative Care citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Palliative Care. 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. Cale CM. Forensic DNA evidence is not infallible. Nature. 2015;526:611.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. MacCoss M, Baillie TA. Organic chemistry in drug discovery. Science. 2004;303:1810–3.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Bailor MH, Sun X, Al-Hashimi HM. Topology links RNA secondary structure with global conformation, dynamics, and adaptation. Science. 2010;327:202–6.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Xiang S, Cooper-Morgan A, Jiao X, Kiledjian M, Manley JL, Tong L. Structure and function of the 5’-->3’ exoribonuclease Rat1 and its activating partner Rai1. Nature. 2009;458:784–8.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Lebowitz ER, Omer H. Treating Childhood and Adolescent Anxiety. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2013.

An edited book

1. Inter-American Development Bank. Saving for Development: How Latin America and the Caribbean Can Save More and Better. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan US; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Różewski P, Bednarz J. Multimodal Perspective on Ontologies Combining Problem in Production Management Systems. In: Omatu S, Bersini H, Corchado JM, Rodríguez S, Pawlewski P, Bucciarelli E, editors. Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence, 11th International Conference. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014. p. 39–46.

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 Palliative Care.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. NASA To Put Plant Life On The Moon. IFLScience. 2013. https://www.iflscience.com/space/nasa-put-plant-life-moon/. 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 Airspace System: Better Cost Data Could Improve FAA’s Management of the Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2003.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Fay JE. California employer perspectives on older working adults specific to the Affordable Care Act health insurance mandate. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach; 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. Sisario B. Prince Museum Approved. New York Times. 2016;:C4.

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 Palliative Care
Abbreviation	BMC Palliat. Care
ISSN (online)	1472-684X
Scope	General Medicine

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