How to format your references using the British Journal of Sports Medicine citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for British Journal of Sports Medicine. 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

Smaglik P. Bricks and mortar. Scandinavia’s material gains. Nature. 2004;429:906.

A journal article with 2 authors

Galitski V, Spielman IB. Spin-orbit coupling in quantum gases. Nature. 2013;494:49–54.

A journal article with 3 authors

Rutberg RL, Hemming SR, Goldstein SL. Reduced North Atlantic Deep Water flux to the glacial Southern Ocean inferred from neodymium isotope ratios. Nature. 2000;405:935–8.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Zhao S, Xu W, Jiang W, et al. Regulation of cellular metabolism by protein lysine acetylation. Science. 2010;327:1000–4.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Aldridge P, O’Dwyer L. Practical Emergency and Critical Care Veterinary Nursing. West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 2013.

An edited book

Jenssen T, editor. Glances at Renewable and Sustainable Energy: Principles, approaches and methodologies for an ambiguous benchmark. London: Springer 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

Purcell JE, Clarkin E, Doyle TK. Foods of Velella velella (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa) in algal rafts and its distribution in Irish seas. In: Purcell J, Mianzan H, Frost JR, eds. Jellyfish Blooms IV: Interactions with humans and fisheries. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands 2012:47–55.

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 British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Blog post

Davis J. Three New Species Of Bird-Eating Spiders Described. IFLScience. 2017. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/three-new-species-of-birdeating-spiders-described/ (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. Telecommunications: Development of Competition in Local Telephone Markets. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office 2000.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Schaper P. Meaning making: Learning in whistle blowing. 2010.

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

Greenhouse L. Justice Unbound. New York Times. 2009;WK1.

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	British Journal of Sports Medicine
Abbreviation	Br. J. Sports Med.
ISSN (print)	0306-3674
ISSN (online)	1473-0480
Scope	General Medicine Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation