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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for British Journal of Ophthalmology. 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	Download the output style file
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

Elmegreen B. Astrophysics: How tiny galaxies form stars. Nature. 2014;514:310–1.

A journal article with 2 authors

Baxter I, Dilkes BP. Elemental profiles reflect plant adaptations to the environment. Science. 2012;336:1661–3.

A journal article with 3 authors

Kaufman YJ, Tanré D, Boucher O. A satellite view of aerosols in the climate system. Nature. 2002;419:215–23.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Wang J, Alexander P, Wu L, et al. Dependence of mouse embryonic stem cells on threonine catabolism. Science. 2009;325:435–9.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Yevick D, Yevick H. Fundamental Math and Physics for Scientists and Engineers. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc 2014.

An edited book

Gontier N, editor. Reticulate Evolution: Symbiogenesis, Lateral Gene Transfer, Hybridization and Infectious Heredity. Cham: Springer International Publishing 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

Andresen E. Compensation for Human Rights Violations in Estonia. In: Bagińska E, ed. Damages for Violations of Human Rights: A Comparative Study of Domestic Legal Systems. Cham: Springer International Publishing 2016:43–67.

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 Ophthalmology.

Blog post

Andrew E. How Half Our Brain Keeps Watch When We Sleep In Unfamiliar Places. IFLScience. 2016.

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. Air Ambulance: Data Collection and Transparency Needed to Enhance DOT Oversight. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office 2017.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Rhoads EP. Knowledge management practices in U.S. federal agencies: The catalyst for E-Government transformation. 2006.

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

Feeney K. From the Sea to Your Plate. New York Times. 2011;NJ10.

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	British Journal of Ophthalmology
Abbreviation	Br. J. Ophthalmol.
ISSN (print)	0007-1161
ISSN (online)	1468-2079
Scope	Ophthalmology Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience Sensory Systems