How to format your references using the Biomedical Optics Express citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Biomedical Optics Express (BOE). 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

J. Liechty, "Scientists and bankers - a new model army," Nature 484(7393), 143 (2012).

A journal article with 2 authors

M. R. Rampino and K. Caldeira, "Comment on “Atmospheric PCO₂ perturbations associated with the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province,”" Science 334(6056), 594; author reply 594 (2011).

A journal article with 3 authors

T. T. Koskinen, A. D. Aylward, and S. Miller, "A stability limit for the atmospheres of giant extrasolar planets," Nature 450(7171), 845–848 (2007).

A journal article with 4 or more authors

J. Y. Chen, A. Kutana, C. P. Collier, and K. P. Giapis, "Electrowetting in carbon nanotubes," Science 310(5753), 1480–1483 (2005).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

L. Theodore and R. G. Kunz, Nanotechnology: Environmental Implications and Solutions (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2005).

An edited book

L. Wang, E. Adeli, Q. Wang, Y. Shi, and H.-I. Suk, eds., Machine Learning in Medical Imaging: 7th International Workshop, MLMI 2016, Held in Conjunction with MICCAI 2016, Athens, Greece, October 17, 2016, Proceedings, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Springer International Publishing, 2016), 10019.

A chapter in an edited book

P. J. Meredith, "Attachment Theory and Pain," in Improving Patient Treatment with Attachment Theory: A Guide for Primary Care Practitioners and Specialists, J. Hunter and R. Maunder, eds. (Springer International Publishing, 2016), pp. 55–73.

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 Biomedical Optics Express.

Blog post

J. Davis, "Scientists Film White Blood Cells Dying for the First Time Ever," https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/scientist-film-white-blood-cells-dying-first-time-ever/.

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, College Textbooks: Enhanced Offerings Appear to Drive Recent Price Increases (U.S. Government Printing Office, 2005).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

M. J. Starr, "Tests for Positive Selection on Genes Encoding Heat Shock Proteins in the Marine Slipper Snail, Crepidula fornicata," Doctoral dissertation, University of Louisiana (2015).

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

B. Hubbard, E. Schmitt, and M. Mazzetti, "Ousted Saudi Prince Said To Be Confined to Palace," New York Times (June 29, 2017).

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	Biomedical Optics Express
ISSN (online)	2156-7085
Scope