How to format your references using the BMC Surgery citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Surgery. 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. Nossal GJV. The double helix and immunology. Nature. 2003;421:440–4.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Ding L, Morrison SJ. Haematopoietic stem cells and early lymphoid progenitors occupy distinct bone marrow niches. Nature. 2013;495:231–5.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Petrides M, Cadoret G, Mackey S. Orofacial somatomotor responses in the macaque monkey homologue of Broca’s area. Nature. 2005;435:1235–8.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Valla T, Fedorov AV, Lee J, Davis JC, Gu GD. The ground state of the pseudogap in cuprate superconductors. Science. 2006;314:1914–6.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Olsson A. Understanding Changing Telecommunications. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2005.

An edited book

1. Daniel F, Dolog P, Li Q, editors. Web Engineering: 13th International Conference, ICWE 2013, Aalborg, Denmark, July 8-12, 2013. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Berthold MR. From Patterns to Discoveries. In: Gaber MM, editor. Journeys to Data Mining: Experiences from 15 Renowned Researchers. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2012. p. 43–9.

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 Surgery.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. Gene Therapy Offers Fresh Hope to Cystic Fibrosis Sufferers. IFLScience. 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/gene-therapy-offers-fresh-hope-cystic-fibrosis-sufferers/. 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. Nanotechnology: Improved Performance Information Needed for Environmental, Health, and Safety Research. 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. Norris C. What is Lost Along the Way. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach; 2014.

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. MARY WILLIAMS WALSH; Compiled by DAVE ITZKOFF. U.S. to Take Over Orchestra’s Pensions. New York Times. 2011;:C3.

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 Surgery
Abbreviation	BMC Surg.
ISSN (online)	1471-2482
Scope	General Medicine Surgery

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