How to format your references using the Systems Biomedicine citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Systems Biomedicine. 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

Marte B. Tumour heterogeneity. Nature 2013; 501:327.

A journal article with 2 authors

Chen P-C, Xu Z-K. Mineral-coated polymer membranes with superhydrophilicity and underwater superoleophobicity for effective oil/water separation. Sci Rep 2013; 3:2776.

A journal article with 3 authors

Jeng M-S, Ng NK, Ng PKL. Feeding behaviour: hydrothermal vent crabs feast on sea “snow.” Nature 2004; 432:969.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Saleh M, Mathison JC, Wolinski MK, Bensinger SJ, Fitzgerald P, Droin N, Ulevitch RJ, Green DR, Nicholson DW. Enhanced bacterial clearance and sepsis resistance in caspase-12-deficient mice. Nature 2006; 440:1064–8.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Rittereiser CM, Kochard LE. Top Hedge Fund Investors. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2010.

An edited book

Breitman K, Cavalcanti A, editors. Formal Methods and Software Engineering: 11th International Conference on Formal Engineering Methods ICFEM 2009, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, December 9-12, 2009. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009.

A chapter in an edited book

Bouziane H, Currle-Linde N, Perez C, Resch M. Analysis of Component Model Extensions to Support the GriCoL Language. In: Fragopoulou P, Getov V, editors. Making Grids Work: Proceedings of the CoreGRID Workshop on Programming Models Grid and P2P System Architecture Grid Systems, Tools and Environments 12-13 June 2007, Heraklion, Crete, Greece. Boston, MA: Springer US; 2008. page 45–55.

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 Systems Biomedicine.

Blog post

Andrew E. Printable Solar Cells One Step Closer To Reaching The Shelves. IFLScience2014;

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. Individuals With Disabilities Education Act: School Districts’ Response to Regulatory Deadline. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1998.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Nolan SA. Ecopoetry and ecocentrism: The poetics of Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams. 2010;

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

Poniewozik J. The Unending Struggle for Gay Rights. New York Times2017; :C2.

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	Systems Biomedicine
Abbreviation	Syst. Biomed. (Austin)
ISSN (print)	2162-8130
ISSN (online)	2162-8149
Scope