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

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

Gordon RG. Plate tectonics. The Antarctic connection. Nature. 2000;404:139–40.

A journal article with 2 authors

Pons AJ, Karma A. Helical crack-front instability in mixed-mode fracture. Nature. 2010;464:85–9.

A journal article with 3 authors

Phillips BL, Casey WH, Karlsson M. Bonding and reactivity at oxide mineral surfaces from model aqueous complexes. Nature. 2000;404:379–82.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Harrison SP, Yu G, Takahara H, et al. Palaeovegetation. Diversity of temperate plants in east Asia. Nature. 2001;413:129–30.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Marroni L, Perdomo I. Pricing and Hedging Financial Derivatives. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons Ltd 2013.

An edited book

Yu R. Development and Evaluation of High Resolution Climate System Models. 1st ed. 2016. Singapore: Springer 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

Du S, Zhang B, Li Z, et al. Fault Attacks on Stream Cipher Scream. In: Lopez J, Wu Y, eds. Information Security Practice and Experience: 11th International Conference, ISPEC 2015, Beijing, China, May 5-8, 2015, Proceedings. Cham: Springer International Publishing 2015:50–64.

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 Sports Medicine.

Blog post

Carpineti A. Study Suggests Atheists Are More Intelligent Because They Can Override Religious Instinct. IFLScience. 2017. https://www.iflscience.com/brain/study-suggests-atheists-are-more-intelligent-because-they-can-override-religious-instinct-/ (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. Questions Designed To Aid Managers and Auditors in Assessing the ADP Planning Process. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office 1979.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Lintott RW. The manipulation of time perception in John Adams’s “Doctor Atomic”. 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

Vecsey G. Back-Scratching With a Global Reach. New York Times. 2010;B19.

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 Sports Medicine
Abbreviation	Br. J. Sports Med.
ISSN (print)	0306-3674
ISSN (online)	1473-0480
Scope	General Medicine Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation