How to format your references using the Journal of Biomedical Optics citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Biomedical Optics. 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

C. M. Dobson, “Getting out of shape,” Nature 418(6899), 729–730 (2002).

A journal article with 2 authors

O. Riordan and L. Warnke, “Explosive percolation is continuous,” Science 333(6040), 322–324 (2011).

A journal article with 3 authors

D. C. Hay Burgess, J. Wasserman, and C. A. Dahl, “Global health diagnostics,” Nature 444 Suppl 1, 1–2 (2006).

A journal article with 4 or more authors

P. J. Focia et al., “Heterodimeric GTPase core of the SRP targeting complex,” Science 303(5656), 373–377 (2004).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

M. Allen, Foundations of Forensic Document Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK (2015).

An edited book

P. Vittorini et al., Eds., International Workshop on Evidence-Based Technology Enhanced Learning, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (2012).

A chapter in an edited book

R. Wu, “Radical Inclusion in the Umbrella Movement: Interstitial Integrity and the New Pentecostal Rebirth of Hong Kong,” in Theological Reflections on the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement, J. K. H. Tse and J. Y. Tan, Eds., pp. 87–106, Palgrave Macmillan US, New York, NY (2016).

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 Journal of Biomedical Optics.

Blog post

S. Luntz, “World’s Most Accurate Clock Loses Just 1 Second Every 16 Billion Years,” IFLScience, 4 March 2015 (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, “Patent Policy: Universities’ Research Efforts Under Public Law 96-517,” RCED-86-93, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (1986).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

A. T. Manners, “Influence of transformational, autocratic, democratic, and laissez -faire leadership principles on the effectiveness of religious leaders,” Doctoral dissertation, University of Phoenix (2008).

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

G. Chauncey, “The Long Road to Marriage Equality,” in New York Times, p. A31 (2013).

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

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	Journal of Biomedical Optics
Abbreviation	J. Biomed. Opt.
ISSN (print)	1083-3668
ISSN (online)	1560-2281
Scope	Biomedical Engineering Biomaterials Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics