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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Biomedical Semantics. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

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Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.
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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
1. Hedges R. Archaeological verification: Puzzling out the past. Nature. 2003;422:667.
A journal article with 2 authors
1. Klose R, Bird A. Molecular biology. MeCP2 repression goes nonglobal. Science. 2003;302:793–5.
A journal article with 3 authors
1. Joachim C, Gimzewski JK, Aviram A. Electronics using hybrid-molecular and mono-molecular devices. Nature. 2000;408:541–8.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
1. Trotta CR, Paushkin SV, Patel M, Li H, Peltz SW. Cleavage of pre-tRNAs by the splicing endonuclease requires a composite active site. Nature. 2006;441:375–7.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1. Hu JC. Asset Securitization. 2 Clementi Loop, #02-01, Singapore 129809: John Wiley & Sons (Asia) Pte. Ltd.; 2011.
An edited book
1. Zhou D, Greenbaum E, editors. Implantable Neural Prostheses 2: Techniques and Engineering Approaches. New York, NY: Springer; 2010.
A chapter in an edited book
1. Goddard J, Goddard M. The Elbow. In: Daniels J, Hoffman MR, editors. Common Musculoskeletal Problems: A Handbook. New York, NY: Springer; 2011. p. 25–31.

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 Semantics.

Blog post
1. Andrew D. Watch The Fight Between A Mongoose And A Cobra. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015.

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
1. Government Accountability Office. Earth Observing System: Concerns Over NASA’s Basic Research Funding Strategy. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1996 Jul. Report No.: NSIAD-96-97.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1. Kalinec-Craig C. A case study of four Latina/o pre-service teachers in learning to teach mathematics for understanding and integrate a child’s out-of-school mathematical knowledge and experiences [Doctoral dissertation]. [Tucson, AZ]: University of Arizona; 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
1. Murphy MJO. Remembering ‘Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.’ New York Times. 2015 Sep 11;C29.

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 titleJournal of Biomedical Semantics
AbbreviationJ. Biomed. Semantics
ISSN (online)2041-1480
Scope

Other styles