How to format your references using the Biological Procedures Online citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Biological Procedures Online. 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 reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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. Luo J. Loops and autonomy promote evolvability of ecosystem networks. Sci Rep. 2014;4:6440.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Nandagopal N, Elowitz MB. Synthetic biology: integrated gene circuits. Science. 2011;333:1244–8.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Goldblatt C, Lenton TM, Watson AJ. Bistability of atmospheric oxygen and the Great Oxidation. Nature. 2006;443:683–6.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Hasty P, Campisi J, Hoeijmakers J, van Steeg H, Vijg J. Aging and genome maintenance: lessons from the mouse? Science. 2003;299:1355–9.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Gray DF, Malone SW. Macrofinancial Risk Analysis. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.; 2008.

An edited book

1. Bach V, Delle Site L, editors. Many-Electron Approaches in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics: A Multidisciplinary View. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Dadkhah S, Sharain K. Symptoms of Atrial Fibrillation. In: Peacock WF, Clark CL, editors. Short Stay Management of Atrial Fibrillation. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. p. 51–9.

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 Biological Procedures Online.

Blog post

1. Hale T. You Really Can Read People’s Emotions Through Their Eyes. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2017.

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. FAA Facilities: Improved Condition Assessment Methods Could Better Inform Maintenance Decisions and Capital- Planning Efforts. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2013 Sep. Report No.: GAO-13-757.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Ross TA. The surgical technologist learning partnership: A comparison of factors in a preceptor relationship [Doctoral dissertation]. [Phoenix, AZ]: University of Phoenix; 2008.

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. Walsh MW. Cities in Debt Turn to States, Adding Strain. New York Times. 2010 Oct 5;B1.

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	Biological Procedures Online
Abbreviation	Biol. Proced. Online
ISSN (online)	1480-9222
Scope	General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology