How to format your references using the BMC Ophthalmology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Ophthalmology. 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. Miralda-Escudé J. The Dark Age of the universe. Science. 2003;300:1904–9.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Honma T, Goto K. Complexes of MADS-box proteins are sufficient to convert leaves into floral organs. Nature. 2001;409:525–9.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Ackermann M, Stearns SC, Jenal U. Senescence in a bacterium with asymmetric division. Science. 2003;300:1920.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Donohoe ME, Silva SS, Pinter SF, Xu N, Lee JT. The pluripotency factor Oct4 interacts with Ctcf and also controls X-chromosome pairing and counting. Nature. 2009;460:128–32.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Chappell D. The JCT Minor Works Building Contracts 2005. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd; 2008.

An edited book

1. Dorsman A, Simpson JL, Westerman W, editors. Energy Economics and Financial Markets. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Tibor G, Sade R, Hall JK, Ben-Avraham Z, Nishri A. Lake Bathymetry and Bottom Morphology. In: Zohary T, Sukenik A, Berman T, Nishri A, editors. Lake Kinneret: Ecology and Management. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2014. p. 59–68.

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 Ophthalmology.

Blog post

1. Taub B. Research Reveals How Discrimination Damages Health Of Transgender People. IFLScience. 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/research-reveals-how-discrimination-damages-health-of-transgender-people/. 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. Review of the Office of Education’s Basic Educational Opportunity Grant Program. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1976.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Wilson BR. A correlational study: Parental involvement to student achievement in public education. Doctoral dissertation. Lindenwood University; 2009.

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. Experts Fear Life Insurers Are Courting Reserve Risk. New York Times. 2012;: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	BMC Ophthalmology
Abbreviation	BMC Ophthalmol.
ISSN (online)	1471-2415
Scope	General Medicine Ophthalmology