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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Public 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. Fekete DM. Developmental biology. Rocks that roll zebrafish. Science. 2003;302:241–2.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Song G, Zhang W. First-principles study on the phase diagram and multiferroic properties of (SrCoO3)1/(SrTiO3)1 superlattices. Sci Rep. 2014;4:4564.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Basu P, Qiu J, Powell K. Making a difference. Nature. 2008;455:1002–3.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Petersson P, Waldenström A, Fåhraeus C, Schouenborg J. Spontaneous muscle twitches during sleep guide spinal self-organization. Nature. 2003;424:72–5.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Flaus J-M. Risk Analysis. Hoboken, NJ USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2013.

An edited book

1. Sankai Y, Suzuki K, Hasegawa Y, editors. Cybernics: Fusion of human, machine and information systems. Tokyo: Springer Japan; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Singh J, Mohanty SP, Pradhan DK. SRAM Bitcell Design Using Unidirectional Devices. In: Mohanty SP, Pradhan DK, editors. Robust SRAM Designs and Analysis. New York, NY: Springer; 2013. p. 113–36.

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 Public Health.

Blog post

1. Luntz S. Spectacular Photograph Captures Bioluminescent Plankton And Aurora At The Same Time. IFLScience. 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/tasmania-lights-above-and-below-adding-photos-please-dont-edit-yet/. 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. U.S. Merchant Marine Academy: Additional Actions Needed to Establish Effective Internal Control. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2012.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Baruth LE. Joan Tower and the clarinet: An examination of her compositional style and a performer’s guide to “RAIN WAVES” (1997) and “A GIFT” (2007). Doctoral dissertation. University of Cincinnati; 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. Walsh MW. Puerto Rico Proposes Plan to Delay Its Debt Payments to Free Up Cash. New York Times. 2016;:B3.

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 Public Health
Abbreviation	BMC Public Health
ISSN (online)	1471-2458
Scope	Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health