How to format your references using the BMJ Open citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BMJ Open. 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

Fenchel T. Microbiology. Biogeography for bacteria. Science. 2003;301:925–6.

A journal article with 2 authors

Beuther H, Schilke P. Fragmentation in massive star formation. Science. 2004;303:1167–9.

A journal article with 3 authors

Goldman SA, Nedergaard M, Windrem MS. Glial progenitor cell-based treatment and modeling of neurological disease. Science. 2012;338:491–5.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Joo H-Y, Zhai L, Yang C, et al. Regulation of cell cycle progression and gene expression by H2A deubiquitination. Nature. 2007;449:1068–72.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Youssef HA. Machining of Stainless Steels and Super Alloys. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 2015.

An edited book

Altizer TJJ. This Silence Must Now Speak: Letters of Thomas J. J. Altizer, 1995–2015. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan US 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

Mehling H, Cabeza LF. Heat transfer basics. In: Cabeza LF, ed. Heat and cold storage with PCM: An up to date introduction into basics and applications. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer 2008:105–36.

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 BMJ Open.

Blog post

Davis J. Shell Gets Final Permit To Allow It To Begin Drilling In The Arctic. IFLScience. 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/shell-gets-final-permit-allow-it-begin-drilling-arctic/ (accessed 30 October 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

Government Accountability Office. Air Traffic Control: FAA Reports Progress in System Acquisitions, but Changes in Performance Measurement Could Improve Usefulness of Information. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office 2007.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Nattress DA. Benefits of single-gender education: Perceptions of middle grade teachers. 2013.

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

Gustines GG. A Showrunner’s Geek Heaven. New York Times. 2016;D11.

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	BMJ Open
Abbreviation	BMJ Open
ISSN (online)	2044-6055
Scope	General Medicine