How to format your references using the Source Code for Biology and Medicine citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Source Code for Biology and Medicine. 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. Hoffman JE. Physics. Sign flips and spin fluctuations in iron high-Tc superconductors. Science. 2010;328:441–3.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Huneycutt AJ, Saykally RJ. Chemistry. Building solutions--one molecule at a time. Science. 2003;299:1329–30.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Cohen JC, Horton JD, Hobbs HH. Human fatty liver disease: old questions and new insights. Science. 2011;332:1519–23.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Vigsnaes LK, van den Abbeele P, Sulek K, Frandsen HL, Steenholdt C, Brynskov J, et al. Microbiotas from UC patients display altered metabolism and reduced ability of LAB to colonize mucus. Sci Rep. 2013;3:1110.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Kissell J. Mac® Security Bible. Indianapolis, IN, USA: Wiley Publishing, Inc.; 2009.

An edited book

1. Adorni G, Cagnoni S, Gori M, Maratea M, editors. AI*IA 2016 Advances in Artificial Intelligence: XVth International Conference of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence, Genova, Italy, November 29 – December 1, 2016, Proceedings. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Billington J, Vanit-Anunchai S, Gallasch GE. Parameterised Coloured Petri Net Channel Models. In: Jensen K, Billington J, Koutny M, editors. Transactions on Petri Nets and Other Models of Concurrency III. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009. p. 71–97.

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 Source Code for Biology and Medicine.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. Man Claims Tropical Spider Burrowed Under His Skin Via Appendix Scar. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2014.

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. ADP Equipment: Buying Through GSA’s Office of Technology Plus Stores. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1985 Nov. Report No.: IMTEC-86-2BR.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Manzanares ME. Effect of a preoperative multidisciplinary education program on weight management after bariatric surgery [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 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. Kolomatsky M. Where It’s Good to Have Four Legs. New York Times. 2017 Sep 21;RE2.

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	Source Code for Biology and Medicine
Abbreviation	Source Code Biol. Med.
ISSN (online)	1751-0473
Scope	Computer Science Applications Information Systems Information Systems and Management Health Informatics