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

Schilling G. ASTRONOMY: Neighborhood Gamma Ray Burst Boosts Theory. Science. 2000 Jul 7;289(5476):29.

A journal article with 2 authors

Regev A, Shapiro E. Cells as computation. Nature. 2002 Sep 26;419(6905):343.

A journal article with 3 authors

Bailor MH, Sun X, Al-Hashimi HM. Topology links RNA secondary structure with global conformation, dynamics, and adaptation. Science. 2010 Jan 8;327(5962):202–6.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Adamowicz BM, Chong DHY, Gutiérrez C, Matz J, Fer E, Polat EO, et al. Broad interests reap benefits for science. Science. 2018 Jul 6;361(6397):24–6.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Heritier S, Cantoni E, Copt S, Victoria-Feser MP. Robust Methods in Biostatistics: Heritier/Robust Methods in Biostatistics. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2009. (Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics).

An edited book

Skrzypek JJ, Rustichelli F, editors. Innovative Technological Materials: Structural Properties by Neutron Scattering, Synchrotron Radiation and Modeling. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2010. XXII, 279 p.

A chapter in an edited book

Noureldin A, Karamat TB, Georgy J. Inertial Navigation System. In: Karamat TB, Georgy J, editors. Fundamentals of Inertial Navigation, Satellite-based Positioning and their Integration. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013. p. 125–66.

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 C. New Dead Sea Scrolls Cave Discovered In Israel [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2017 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/new-dead-sea-scrolls-cave-discovered-in-israel/

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. Early Childhood Programs: Promoting the Development of Young Children in Denmark, France, and Italy. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1995 Feb. Report No.: HEHS-95-45BR.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Kafi W. The effects of patient demographic variables on cesarean section-related surgical site infection rates [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2013.

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

Shpigel B. Pro Football; Bowles Hospitalized, and He May Not Coach. New York Times. 2016 Dec 23;D4.

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