How to format your references using the British Journal of Biomedical Science citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for British Journal of Biomedical Science. 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

Gibson G. Human genetics. GTEx detects genetic effects. Science. 2015 May 8;348(6235):640–1.

A journal article with 2 authors

Seeber L, Armbruster JG. Earthquakes as beacons of stress change. Nature. 2000 Sep 7;407(6800):69–72.

A journal article with 3 authors

Reinfelder JR, Kraepiel AM, Morel FM. Unicellular C4 photosynthesis in a marine diatom. Nature. 2000 Oct 26;407(6807):996–9.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Arpigny C, Jehin E, Manfroid J, Hutsemékers D, Schulz R, Stüwe JA, et al. Anomalous nitrogen isotope ratio in comets. Science. 2003 Sep 12;301(5639):1522–4.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Anderson RK. Visual Data Mining. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2012.

An edited book

Patel VB, Preedy VR, editors. Biomarkers in Kidney Disease. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2016. 208 illus., 150 illus. in color. eReference. (Biomarkers in Disease: Methods, Discoveries and Applications).

A chapter in an edited book

Waseda Y, Matsubara E, Shinoda K. Reciprocal Lattice and Integrated Intensities of Crystals. In: Matsubara E, Shinoda K, editors. X-Ray Diffraction Crystallography: Introduction, Examples and Solved Problems. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011. p. 169–218.

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 British Journal of Biomedical Science.

Blog post

Carpineti A. Researchers Reveal Blueprint For Quantum Computers [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2017 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/technology/researchers-reveal-blueprint-for-quantum-computers/

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. Career and Technical Education: States Have Broad Flexibility in Implementing Perkins IV. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2009 Jul. Report No.: GAO-09-683.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Boothe CS. The effects of prototype medium on the user’s overall perception of usability and ability to detect usability flaws [Doctoral dissertation]. [Mississippi State, MS]: Mississippi State University; 2012.

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

Liptak A. Justices Reject 2 Districts In North Carolina, Citing Packing of Black Voters. New York Times. 2017 May 22;A18.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

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	British Journal of Biomedical Science
Abbreviation	Br. J. Biomed. Sci.
ISSN (print)	0967-4845
Scope	Clinical Biochemistry Immunology Microbiology Biochemistry, medical Immunology and Allergy Infectious Diseases Microbiology (medical)