How to format your references using the Acta Neurochirurgica citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Acta Neurochirurgica. 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 references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles 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

Noble D (2002) Modeling the heart--from genes to cells to the whole organ. Science 295(5560):1678–1682

A journal article with 2 authors

Livneh U, Zador A (2014) Sensory systems: Sound processing takes motor control. Nature 513(7517):180–181

A journal article with 3 authors

Lemos B, Araripe LO, Hartl DL (2008) Polymorphic Y chromosomes harbor cryptic variation with manifold functional consequences. Science 319(5859):91–93

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Broecker W, Barker S, Clark E, Hajdas I, Bonani G, Stott L (2004) Ventilation of the glacial deep Pacific Ocean. Science 306(5699):1169–1172

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Brown MA, Kaplan L (2012) The Advanced Practice Registered Nurse as a Prescriber. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., West Sussex, UK

An edited book

Braunstein GD (ed) (2012) Thyroid Cancer. Springer US, Boston, MA

A chapter in an edited book

Malinow R, Hsieh H, Wei W (2008) Impact of Beta Amyloid on Excitatory Synaptic Transmission and Plasticity. In: Selkoe DJ, Triller A, Christen Y (eds) Synaptic Plasticity and the Mechanism of Alzheimer’s Disease. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 63–68

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 Acta Neurochirurgica.

Blog post

Andrew E (2014) “Dancing” Frog Legs. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/dancing-frog-legs/. 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

Government Accountability Office (1975) Automatic Data Processing Activity in the Feed Materials Production Center, Fernald, Ohio. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Zhang Y (2017) Toward a Molecular Mechanism of Phase Separation in Disordered Elastin-Like Proteins. Doctoral dissertation, Mississippi State University

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

Stack L, Schweber N (2015) 2 Shot by Undercover New York City Officer in Westchester. New York Times A14

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [2].
This sentence cites two references [3, 4].
This sentence cites four references [5–8].

About the journal

Full journal title	Acta Neurochirurgica
Abbreviation	Acta Neurochir. (Wien)
ISSN (print)	0001-6268
ISSN (online)	0942-0940
Scope	Clinical Neurology Surgery