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

Siegel JS. Chemistry. Chemical topology and interlocking molecules. Science 2004; 304:1256–8.

A journal article with 2 authors

Singh R, Cresswell P. Defective cross-presentation of viral antigens in GILT-free mice. Science 2010; 328:1394–8.

A journal article with 3 authors

Mathis D, Vence L, Benoist C. beta-Cell death during progression to diabetes. Nature 2001; 414:792–8.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Liu C, Dutton Z, Behroozi CH, Hau LV. Observation of coherent optical information storage in an atomic medium using halted light pulses. Nature 2001; 409:490–3.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Gunn A, Pitt SJ. Parasitology. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2012.

An edited book

Workman RB, Coleman RE, editors. PET/CT: Essentials for Clinical Practice. New York, NY: Springer; 2006.

A chapter in an edited book

Barbancho AM, Barbancho I, Tardón LJ, Molina E. Summary and Discussion. In: Barbancho I, Tardón LJ, Molina E, editors. Database of Piano Chords: An Engineering View of Harmony. New York, NY: Springer; 2013. page 35–6.

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

Luntz S. Tropical Biofuel Crops Can Store More Soil Carbon Than They Release. IFLScience2017;

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. Job Access and Reverse Commute Program: Progress Made in Using Funds and Stakeholder Views on Proposed Program Changes. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2011.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Morales D. Understanding How Perceptions of School Leadership and School Community Relationships Affected Veteran Teachers’ Decisions to Remain Working in Urban Elementary Schools. 2017;

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

Hodara S. Contrasting Art and Creating Dialogue. New York Times2015; :CT10.

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