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

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

Morton O. PARTICLE PHYSICS: The Final Tally Leaves LEP a Probable Loser. Science. 2000 Nov 17; 290: 1274a.

A journal article with 2 authors

Galonić DP, Gin DY. Chemical glycosylation in the synthesis of glycoconjugate antitumour vaccines. Nature. 2007 Apr 26; 446: 1000–1007.

A journal article with 3 authors

Blackstone E, Morrison M, Roth MB. H2S induces a suspended animation-like state in mice. Science. 2005 Apr 22; 308: 518.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Brown MG, Dokun AO, Heusel JW, Smith HR, Beckman DL, Blattenberger EA, et al. Vital involvement of a natural killer cell activation receptor in resistance to viral infection. Science. 2001 May 4; 292: 934–937.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Utas G. Robust Communications Software. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2006.

An edited book

Park D-Y, editor. Legal Issues on Climate Change and International Trade Law. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

Brosio RA. Critical Theory for Schooling-Education and Society. In: Cooper K, White R, editors. The Practical Critical Educator. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2006. p. 71–93.

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 Surgery.

Blog post

Luntz S. Homeopathic Drops and Pills Recalled Because They Might Contain Real Medicine [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2014 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/homeopathic-drops-and-pills-recalled-because-they-might-contain-real-medicine/

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. Homeland Security: OMB’s Temporary Cessation of Information Technology Funding for New Investments. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2002 Oct. Report No.: GAO-03-186T.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Gibb A. Implementing U.S. security strategy in the 21st century: A three-part examination of the evolving role of the military in American foreign and security policy [Doctoral dissertation]. [Chapel Hill, NC]: University of North Carolina; 2012.

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

Hirsch GA. Building Their Sport Stride By Stride. New York Times. 2013 Oct 29; B15.

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	British Journal of Surgery
Abbreviation	Br. J. Surg.
ISSN (print)	0007-1323
Scope	Surgery