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

Livio M. Astronomy: Hubble’s legacy. Nature. 2015 Apr 16;520(7547):287–9.

A journal article with 2 authors

Bienz M, He X. Biochemistry. A lipid linchpin for Wnt-Fz docking. Science. 2012 Jul 6;337(6090):44–5.

A journal article with 3 authors

Tingley MW, Estes LD, Wilcove DS. Ecosystems: climate change must not blow conservation off course. Nature. 2013 Aug 15;500(7462):271–2.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Keren K, Krueger M, Gilad R, Ben-Yoseph G, Sivan U, Braun E. Sequence-specific molecular lithography on single DNA molecules. Science. 2002 Jul 5;297(5578):72–5.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Center for Chemical Process Safety. Guidelines for Chemical Process Quantitative Risk Analysis. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2010.

An edited book

Hommel G, Huanye S, editors. Embedded Systems – Modeling, Technology, and Applications. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2006. XII, 195 p.

A chapter in an edited book

Worbs T, Förster R. T Cell Migration Dynamics Within Lymph Nodes During Steady State: An Overview of Extracellular and Intracellular Factors Influencing the Basal Intranodal T Cell Motility. In: Dustin M, McGavern D, editors. Visualizing Immunity. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009. p. 71–105. (Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology).

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

Andrew E. How To Feed a Two-Headed Snake [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2014 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/how-feed-two-headed-snake/

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. Federal Aviation Administration’s Advanced Automation System Investment. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1988 Mar. Report No.: T-IMTEC-88-2.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Turpin-Padberg S. Effects of Elementary Teacher Preparation and Support on Retention [Doctoral dissertation]. [ St. Charles, MO]: Lindenwood University; 2017.

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

Kenigsberg B. Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton. New York Times. 2017 Oct 5;C6.

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)