How to format your references using the BMC Plant Biology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Plant Biology. 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. Fewell JH. Social insect networks. Science. 2003;301:1867–70.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Jacoby CA, Frazer TK. Eutrophication: time to adjust expectations. Science. 2009;324:723–4; author reply 724-5.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Hwang H-W, Wentzel EA, Mendell JT. A hexanucleotide element directs microRNA nuclear import. Science. 2007;315:97–100.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Long H, Shi T, Hu H, Jiang S, Xi S, Tang Z. Growth of hierarchal mesoporous NiO nanosheets on carbon cloth as binder-free anodes for high-performance flexible lithium-ion batteries. Sci Rep. 2014;4:7413.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Martin JE. Physics for Radiation Protection. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2013.

An edited book

1. Boxall ABA, editor. Transformation Products of Synthetic Chemicals in the Environment. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Esposito F, Ferilli S, Basile TMA, Di Mauro N. Machine Learning for Digital Document Processing: from Layout Analysis to Metadata Extraction. In: Marinai S, Fujisawa H, editors. Machine Learning in Document Analysis and Recognition. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2008. p. 105–38.

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 Plant Biology.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. Why are Parrots Such Good Copycats? IFLScience. 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/why-are-parrots-such-good-copycats/. 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. Hospital ADP Systems: VA Needs To Better Manage Its Decentralized System Before Expansion. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1987.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Douet C. The influence of an overseas trip to France on high school students studying French, four years after graduation. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach; 2010.

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. Southall A. 2 Charged With Murder After a Buried Body Is Found in New Jersey. New York Times. 2016;:A25.

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 Plant Biology
Abbreviation	BMC Plant Biol.
ISSN (online)	1471-2229
Scope	Plant Science