How to format your references using the BMC Physiology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Physiology. 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. Hilton DR. Geochemistry. The leaking mantle. Science. 2007;318:1389–90.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Tissenbaum HA, Guarente L. Increased dosage of a sir-2 gene extends lifespan in Caenorhabditis elegans. Nature. 2001;410:227–30.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Malinowski JT, Sharpe RJ, Johnson JS. Enantioselective synthesis of pactamycin, a complex antitumor antibiotic. Science. 2013;340:180–2.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Gasser S, Orsulic S, Brown EJ, Raulet DH. The DNA damage pathway regulates innate immune system ligands of the NKG2D receptor. Nature. 2005;436:1186–90.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Krysinski T, Malburet F. Mechanical Instability. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2013.

An edited book

1. Wang Y, Li T, editors. Knowledge Engineering and Management: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Intelligent Systems and Knowledge Engineering, Shanghai, China, Dec 2011 (ISKE2011). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Dalla Pria P. I materiali. In: Pace N, editor. La protesi di ginocchio di primo impianto. Milano: Springer; 2005. p. 45–61.

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 Physiology.

Blog post

1. Hale T. This Is What An Ancient Egyptian Woman Looked LIke. IFLScience. 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/this-is-what-an-ancient-egyptian-woman-looked-like/. 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. Student Aid Information and Private Tuition-Guarantee Programs. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1991.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Baker NS. Bridging the Gap: Finding the Language of Soul. Doctoral dissertation. Pacifica Graduate Institute; 2012.

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. Crow K. My Son the Bureaucrat, My Dad the Gadfly. New York Times. 2002;:143.

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 Physiology
Abbreviation	BMC Physiol.
ISSN (online)	1472-6793
Scope	Physiology General Medicine Physiology (medical)