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 reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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

Rasio FA. Astronomy. A black widow’s best friend? Science. 2011;333:1712–3.

A journal article with 2 authors

Nowak MA, Sigmund K. Evolution of indirect reciprocity. Nature. 2005;437:1291–8.

A journal article with 3 authors

Oberholzer S, Sukhorukov EV, Schönenberger C. Crossover between classical and quantum shot noise in chaotic cavities. Nature. 2002;415:765–7.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Cheng C, Guo H, Amini A, et al. Self-assembly and horizontal orientation growth of VO2 nanowires. Sci Rep. 2014;4:5456.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kääriäinen T, Cameron D, Kääriäinen M-L, et al. Atomic Layer Deposition. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2013.

An edited book

roJoint Chairman, Cordier J-L, Gram L, et al., editors. Micro-Organisms in Foods 6: Microbial Ecology of Food Commodities. Boston, MA: Springer US 2005.

A chapter in an edited book

Khan RA. Introduction: The Use of Extrathecal CSF Shunts, Optional vs Mandatory, Unavoidable Complications. In: Di Rocco C, Turgut M, Jallo G, et al., eds. Complications of CSF Shunting in Hydrocephalus: Prevention, Identification, and Management. Cham: Springer International Publishing 2015:75–80.

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

Davis J. How The Snake Lost Its Legs. IFLScience. 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/how-the-snake-lost-its-legs/ (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. Expenditures for Telephone Services and Adequacy of Controls Over Such Services. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office 1973.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Eutz RJ. The experiences of Recovery High School students: Using empirical phenomenology to garner knowledge. 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

Belson K, Pilon M. Concern Raised Over Painkiller’s Use in Sports. New York Times. 2012;A1.

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