How to format your references using the BMC Dermatology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Dermatology. 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 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. Macilwain C. Change the cancer conversation. Nature. 2015;520:7.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Dasgupta R, Hirschmann MM. Melting in the Earth’s deep upper mantle caused by carbon dioxide. Nature. 2006;440:659–62.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Weis P, Driesner T, Heinrich CA. Porphyry-copper ore shells form at stable pressure-temperature fronts within dynamic fluid plumes. Science. 2012;338:1613–6.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Cabrillac D, Cock JM, Dumas C, Gaude T. The S-locus receptor kinase is inhibited by thioredoxins and activated by pollen coat proteins. Nature. 2001;410:220–3.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Balani K, Verma V, Agarwal A, Narayan R. Biosurfaces. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc; 2014.

An edited book

1. Rojszczak A. From the Act of Judging to the Sentence: The Problem of Truth Bearers from Bolzano to Tarski. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2005.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Cortese PF, Di Battista G, Patrignani M, Pizzonia M. On Embedding a Cycle in a Plane Graph. In: Healy P, Nikolov NS, editors. Graph Drawing: 13th International Symposium, GD 2005, Limerick, Ireland, September 12-14, 2005. Revised Papers. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2006. p. 49–60.

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 BMC Dermatology.

Blog post

1. Andrew D. Tigers Can Roam For Hundreds Of Miles – Should They Ever Be Kept In Zoos? IFLScience. 2017. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/tigers-can-roam-for-hundreds-of-miles-should-they-ever-be-kept-in-zoos/. Accessed 30 Oct 2018.

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. Telecommunications: 1991 Survey of Cable Television Rates and Services. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1991.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Richards O. Teachers’ Perceptions About the Value of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: A Case Study. Doctoral dissertation. Northcentral University; 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

1. Pilon M. Inspiring Horse Honored. New York Times. 2012;:D4.

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	BMC Dermatology
Abbreviation	BMC Dermatol.
ISSN (online)	1471-5945
Scope	Dermatology