How to format your references using the British Medical Bulletin citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for British Medical Bulletin. 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

Boss AP. Star formation. Three’s a crowd. Nature. 2000 May 25;405(6785):405, 407.

A journal article with 2 authors

Rosegrant MW, Cline SA. Global food security: challenges and policies. Science. 2003 Dec 12;302(5652):1917–9.

A journal article with 3 authors

Gong Y, Mo C, Fraser SE. Planar cell polarity signalling controls cell division orientation during zebrafish gastrulation. Nature. 2004 Aug 5;430(7000):689–93.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Singh PK, Parsek MR, Greenberg EP, Welsh MJ. A component of innate immunity prevents bacterial biofilm development. Nature. 2002 May 30;417(6888):552–5.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Ahamed SV. Intelligent Internet Knowledge Networks. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2006.

An edited book

Pokojski J, Fukuda S, Salwiński J, editors. New World Situation: New Directions in Concurrent Engineering: Proceedings of the 17th ISPE International Conference on Concurrent Engineering. London: Springer; 2010. XX, 610 p. (Advanced Concurrent Engineering).

A chapter in an edited book

Castrén MK. Compression-Only CPR Versus CPR with Ventilations. In: Gullo A, Ristagno G, editors. Resuscitation: Translational Research, Clinical Evidence, Education, Guidelines. Milano: Springer; 2014. p. 41–5.

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 Medical Bulletin.

Blog post

Carpineti A. Where Is Planet Nine? [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/space/scientists-further-reduce-search-area-planet-nine/

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. Information Management: Issues Important to Farmers Home Administration Systems Modernization. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1989 Aug. Report No.: IMTEC-89-64.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Powell FM. A study of the effects of nanoparticle modification on the thermal, mechanical and hygrothermal performance of carbon/vinyl ester composites [Doctoral dissertation]. [Boca Raton, FL]: Florida Atlantic 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

Shear MD. How I Learned Comey Was Out. New York Times. 2017 May 11;A2.

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 Medical Bulletin
Abbreviation	Br. Med. Bull.
ISSN (print)	0007-1420
ISSN (online)	1471-8391
Scope	General Medicine