How to format your references using the Journal of Biomedical Optics citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Biomedical Optics. 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

E. Zerhouni, “Embryonic stem cells. Stem cell programs,” Science 300(5621), 911–912 (2003).

A journal article with 2 authors

T. Hirose and H. R. Horvitz, “An Sp1 transcription factor coordinates caspase-dependent and -independent apoptotic pathways,” Nature 500(7462), 354–358 (2013).

A journal article with 3 authors

Y. Gong, C. Mo, and S. E. Fraser, “Planar cell polarity signalling controls cell division orientation during zebrafish gastrulation,” Nature 430(7000), 689–693 (2004).

A journal article with 4 or more authors

E. Sucena et al., “Regulatory evolution of shavenbaby/ovo underlies multiple cases of morphological parallelism,” Nature 424(6951), 935–938 (2003).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

G. Pepper and M. J. Oliver, The Liquidity Theory of Asset Prices, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Oxford, UK (2006).

An edited book

A. Giulietti, Ed., Laser-Driven Particle Acceleration Towards Radiobiology and Medicine, Springer International Publishing, Cham (2016).

A chapter in an edited book

L. H. Cisneros et al., “Individual to Collective Dynamics of Swimming Bacteria,” in Natural Locomotion in Fluids and on Surfaces: Swimming, Flying, and Sliding, S. Childress et al., Eds., pp. 73–82, Springer, New York, NY (2012).

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 Journal of Biomedical Optics.

Blog post

J. Davis, “Bioluminescence In Fish Is Far More Widespread Than Previously Thought,” IFLScience, 9 June 2016, <https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/bioluminescence-in-fish-is-far-more-widespread-than-previously-thought/> (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, “Integration of Current Implementation Efforts with Long-term Planning for the Next Generation Air Transportation System,” GAO-11-132R, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (2010).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

V. Krishna, “Exploring organizational commitment from an organizational perspective: Organizational learning as a determinant of affective commitment in Indian software firms,” Doctoral dissertation, George Washington University (2008).

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

M. W. Walsh and C. Robertson, “Just Before Deadline, County in Alabama Delays Bankruptcy Move,” in New York Times, p. B1 (2011).

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	Journal of Biomedical Optics
Abbreviation	J. Biomed. Opt.
ISSN (print)	1083-3668
ISSN (online)	1560-2281
Scope	Biomedical Engineering Biomaterials Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics