How to format your references using the BMC Urology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Urology. 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. Macilwain C. NSF celebrates half a century with big plans. Nature. 2000;405:8.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Lindsay ME, Dietz HC. Lessons on the pathogenesis of aneurysm from heritable conditions. Nature. 2011;473:308–16.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Azzam NA, Hallenbeck JM, Kachar B. Membrane changes during hibernation. Nature. 2000;407:317–8.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Wannamaker PE, Caldwell TG, Jiracek GR, Maris V, Hill GJ, Ogawa Y, et al. Fluid and deformation regime of an advancing subduction system at Marlborough, New Zealand. Nature. 2009;460:733–6.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Belliotti RA. Dante’s Deadly Sins. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell; 2011.

An edited book

1. Vincent J-L, editor. Yearbook of Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2006.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Tarapore RS, Katz JP. Molecular Pathology of Squamous Carcinomas of the Esophagus. In: Sepulveda AR, Lynch JP, editors. Molecular Pathology of Neoplastic Gastrointestinal Diseases. Boston, MA: Springer US; 2013. p. 53–66.

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 Urology.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. After Rosetta, Japanese Mission Aims For An Asteroid In Search of Origins of Earth’s Water. 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. Emergency Management: Status of School Districts’ Planning and Preparedness. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2007.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Greene GL. An Analysis of the Comparison between Classroom Grades Earned with a Standards-Based Grading System and Grade-Level Assessment Scores as Measured by the Missouri Assessment Program. Doctoral dissertation. Lindenwood University; 2015.

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. Billard M. Lord & Taylor Lets the Light In. New York Times. 2010;:E6.

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 Urology
Abbreviation	BMC Urol.
ISSN (online)	1471-2490
Scope	General Medicine Reproductive Medicine Urology