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:

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. Greenberg DS. A two-year plan for US science. Nature. 2010;467:781–2.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Hagan J, Palloni A. Social science. Death in Darfur. Science. 2006;313:1578–9.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Nowak MA, Komarova NL, Niyogi P. Evolution of universal grammar. Science. 2001;291:114–8.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Ni M, Zhang W-Z, Qiu J-R, Liu F, Li M, Zhang Y-J, et al. Association of ERCC1 and ERCC2 polymorphisms with colorectal cancer risk in a Chinese population. Sci Rep. 2014;4:4112.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Mack I. Energy Trading and Risk Management. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2014.

An edited book

1. Papasratorn B, Lavangnananda K, Chutimaskul W, Vanijja V, editors. Advances in Information Technology: 4th International Conference, IAIT 2010, Bangkok, Thailand, November 4-5, 2010. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2010.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Membrey P, Hows D. Essential Commands. In: Hows D, editor. Learn Raspberry Pi 2 with Linux and Windows 10. Berkeley, CA: Apress; 2015. p. 97–116.

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. Researchers Discover Neurons That Play A Role In Asthma Attacks. IFLScience. 2014. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/researchers-discover-neurons-play-role-asthma-attacks/. 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. Information Technology: Census Bureau Testing of 2010 Decennial Systems Can Be Strengthened. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2009.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Decena M. What variables affect Peritoneal Dialysis growth? 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. Tackett M. In Trump Country, Incumbent Democrats Toe a Fine Line. New York Times. 2017;:A13.

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 Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation
Abbreviation	BMC Sports Sci. Med. Rehabil.
ISSN (online)	2052-1847
Scope	Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Rehabilitation Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation

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