How to format your references using the BMC Structural Biology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMC Structural Biology. 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. Aldiss BW. Desperately seeking aliens. Nature. 2001;409:1080–2.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Hussain NK, Sheng M. Neuroscience. Making synapses: a balancing act. Science. 2005;307:1207–8.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Sempere T, Hartley A, Roperch P. Comment on “Rapid uplift of the Altiplano revealed through 13C-18O bonds in paleosol carbonates.” Science. 2006;314:760; author reply 760.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Hsieh T-F, Ibarra CA, Silva P, Zemach A, Eshed-Williams L, Fischer RL, et al. Genome-wide demethylation of Arabidopsis endosperm. Science. 2009;324:1451–4.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Vaseghi SV. Advanced Digital Signal Processing and Noise Reduction. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2001.

An edited book

1. Gollmann D, Freiling FC, editors. Information Security: 15th International Conference, ISC 2012, Passau, Germany, September 19-21, 2012. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2012.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Leal-Silva H. Fasil Scale: Measurement of Facial Skin and Soft-Tissue Laxity. In: Shiffman MA, Mirrafati SJ, Lam SM, Cueteaux CG, editors. Simplified Facial Rejuvenation. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2008. p. 51–63.

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 Structural Biology.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. What Would Happen If You Touched A Black Hole? IFLScience. 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/physics/what-would-happen-if-you-touched-black-hole/. 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. Coordination of Computerized Information Systems Reporting on Active Research Efforts. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1973.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Luo SX. Theoretical models of olfactory discrimination in Drosophila. Doctoral dissertation. Columbia 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. Kenigsberg B. The Listings; Film Series. New York Times. 2016;:C28.

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 Structural Biology
Abbreviation	BMC Struct. Biol.
ISSN (online)	1472-6807
Scope	Structural Biology