How to format your references using the BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation. 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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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. Buchenau J. Global Darwin: Multicultural mergers. Nature. 2009;462:284–5.
A journal article with 2 authors
1. Aggarwal BD, Calvi BR. Chromatin regulates origin activity in Drosophila follicle cells. Nature. 2004;430:372–6.
A journal article with 3 authors
1. Kurtovic A, Widmer A, Dickson BJ. A single class of olfactory neurons mediates behavioural responses to a Drosophila sex pheromone. Nature. 2007;446:542–6.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
1. Grill SW, Howard J, Schäffer E, Stelzer EHK, Hyman AA. The distribution of active force generators controls mitotic spindle position. Science. 2003;301:518–21.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1. Mauthe A, Thomas P. Professional Content Management Systems. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2005.
An edited book
1. Agrawal PN, Mohapatra RN, Singh U, Srivastava HM, editors. Mathematical Analysis and its Applications: Roorkee, India, December 2014. New Delhi: Springer India; 2015.
A chapter in an edited book
1. Gordon SM, Buchwald M. The FANCC Gene and Its Products. In: Kirk SH, editor. Molecular Mechanisms of Fanconi Anemia. Boston, MA: Springer US; 2006. p. 36–53.

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 Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation.

Blog post
1. Andrew E. This Technique Could Lead To Self-Healing Tires. IFLScience. 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/technique-could-lead-self-healing-tires/. 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. Year 2000 Computing Challenge: Readiness of Key State-Administered Federal Programs. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1999.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1. Schewe EM. Re-establishing Connections: Listening to Women Psychology Students Talk about Recovery. Doctoral dissertation. Pacifica Graduate Institute; 2016.

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. Barron J. The Lost Battle That Helped Win the Revolution. New York Times. 2016;:A15.

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 titleBMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation
AbbreviationBMC Sports Sci. Med. Rehabil.
ISSN (online)2052-1847
ScopeOrthopedics and Sports Medicine
Rehabilitation
Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation

Other styles