How to format your references using the BMJ Case Reports citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMJ Case Reports. 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

Vedral V. Physics. Moving beyond trust in quantum computing. Science. 2012;335:294–5.

A journal article with 2 authors

Hiiragi T, Solter D. First cleavage plane of the mouse egg is not predetermined but defined by the topology of the two apposing pronuclei. Nature. 2004;430:360–4.

A journal article with 3 authors

Conroy C, van Dokkum PG, Choi J. Ubiquitous time variability of integrated stellar populations. Nature. 2015;527:488–91.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Li W, Pohl T, Rost JM, et al. A homonuclear molecule with a permanent electric dipole moment. Science. 2011;334:1110–4.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Duggan D. Enterprise Software Architecture and Design. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2012.

An edited book

Mukhamedov F. Quantum Quadratic Operators and Processes. 1st ed. 2015. Cham: Springer International Publishing 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

Bacellar Filho RFB, Friedrich TS. Foreign Administrative Acts in Brazil. In: Rodríguez-Arana Muñoz J, ed. Recognition of Foreign Administrative Acts. Cham: Springer International Publishing 2016:91–101.

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 BMJ Case Reports.

Blog post

Andrew E. What Happens When Wildlife Reclaims Chernobyl? IFLScience. 2014. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/what-happens-when-wildlife-reclaims-chernobyl/ (accessed 30 October 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

Government Accountability Office. ADP Systems: FDA Can Reduce Development Risks for Its Import Information System. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office 1988.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Maddirala RR. Secure file transfers using mobile device. 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

Crow K. Looking For Love. New York Times. 2001;141.

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	BMJ Case Reports
Abbreviation	BMJ Case Rep.
ISSN (online)	1757-790X
Scope