How to format your references using the BMC Zoology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Zoology. 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. Vicsek T. A question of scale. Nature. 2001;411:421.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Turelli P, Trono D. Editing at the crossroad of innate and adaptive immunity. Science. 2005;307:1061–5.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Sansom RS, Gabbott SE, Purnell MA. Non-random decay of chordate characters causes bias in fossil interpretation. Nature. 2010;463:797–800.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Shen J-C, Fox EJ, Ahn EH, Loeb LA. A rapid assay for measuring nucleotide excision repair by oligonucleotide retrieval. Sci Rep. 2014;4:4894.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Doerfler W. Foreign DNA in Mammalian Systems. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH; 2007.

An edited book

1. Robinett RD III. Nonlinear Power Flow Control Design: Utilizing Exergy, Entropy, Static and Dynamic Stability, and Lyapunov Analysis. London: Springer; 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Leisinger KM. The Role of Corporations in Shaping Globalization with a Human Face. In: Straus J, editor. The Role of Law and Ethics in the Globalized Economy. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009. p. 1–19.

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 Zoology.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. Monoclonal Antibodies: The Invisible Allies That Changed The Face Of Medicine. IFLScience. 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/monoclonal-antibodies-invisible-allies-changed-face-medicine/. 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. Global Positioning Technology: Opportunities for Greater Federal Agency Joint Development and Use. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1994.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Kazadi MM. Use of Data Fusion and SPC in Vibrations Detection. Doctoral dissertation. Southern Illinois University; 2013.

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. Kelly O. The Nation; What the Rosenberg Papers Show The Surprise Final Witness. New York Times. 1975;:The Week In ReviewE4.

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 Zoology
Abbreviation	BMC Zool.
ISSN (online)	2056-3132
Scope