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.

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

1. Malakoff D. ELECTION 2000: Uncertainty Wins by a Landslide. Science. 2000;290:1277–9.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Blake C, Wall J. A velocity dipole in the distribution of radio galaxies. Nature. 2002;416:150–2.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. McCarty KF, Nobel JA, Bartelt NC. Vacancies in solids and the stability of surface morphology. Nature. 2001;412:622–5.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Bitterman Y, Mukamel R, Malach R, Fried I, Nelken I. Ultra-fine frequency tuning revealed in single neurons of human auditory cortex. Nature. 2008;451:197–201.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Calloway J. Becoming a Category of One. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2009.

An edited book

1. Lin D, Shkedy Z, Yekutieli D, Amaratunga D, Bijnens L, editors. Modeling Dose-Response Microarray Data in Early Drug Development Experiments Using R: Order-Restricted Analysis of Microarray Data. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2012.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Godemann J. Sustainable Communication as an Inter- and Transdisciplinary Discipline. In: Godemann J, Michelsen G, editors. Sustainability Communication: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoretical Foundation. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2011. p. 39–51.

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 E. Ultra-Thin Membranes Could Lead To Chip-Sized Electroosmotic Pumps [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2013 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/technology/ultra-thin-membranes-could-lead-chip-sized-electroosmotic-pumps/

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. Computer Security: Hackers Penetrate DOD Computer Systems. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1991 Nov. Report No.: T-IMTEC-92-5.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Zbeeb K. Transport and dispersion of fire extinguishing agents downstream from clutter elements of aircraft engine nacelles [Doctoral dissertation]. [Boca Raton, FL]: Florida Atlantic University; 2009.

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. Brantley B. A ‘Hamlet’ Poised Between Two Worlds. New York Times. 2017 May 22;C5.

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	Journal of Biomedical Semantics
Abbreviation	J. Biomed. Semantics
ISSN (online)	2041-1480
Scope

Research and Writing Guides