How to format your references using the BMC Psychology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Psychology. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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. Russo G. Bioscience in the sun. Nature. 2007;446:1112–3.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Doulatov S, Daley GQ. Development. A stem cell perspective on cellular engineering. Science. 2013;342:700–2.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Pinker RT, Zhang B, Dutton EG. Do satellites detect trends in surface solar radiation? Science. 2005;308:850–4.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Brooks AS, Yellen JE, Potts R, Behrensmeyer AK, Deino AL, Leslie DE, et al. Long-distance stone transport and pigment use in the earliest Middle Stone Age. Science. 2018;360:90–4.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Straus SE, Sackett DL. Mentorship in Academic Medicine. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2013.

An edited book

1. Swenson ER, Bärtsch P, editors. High Altitude: Human Adaptation to Hypoxia. New York, NY: Springer; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Aloupis G, Bose PK, Collette S, Demaine ED, Demaine ML, Douïeb K, et al. Common Unfoldings of Polyominoes and Polycubes. In: Akiyama J, Bo J, Kano M, Tan X, editors. Computational Geometry, Graphs and Applications: 9th International Conference, CGGA 2010, Dalian, China, November 3-6, 2010, Revised Selected Papers. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011. p. 44–54.

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 Psychology.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. Could Megalodon Still Live In The Deep Ocean? IFLScience. 2014. 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. Truck Safety: Share the Road Safely Pilot Initiative Showed Promise, but the Program’s Future Success Is Uncertain. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2006.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. De La Cruz CF. A program evaluation of a literacy initiative for students with moderate to severe disabilities. Doctoral dissertation. University of South Florida; 2009.

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. Wilson M. One Year After 2 Days of Havoc, the Chelsea Bombing Case Goes to Trial. New York Times. 2017;:A23.

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 Psychology
Abbreviation	BMC Psychol.
ISSN (online)	2050-7283
Scope