How to format your references using the Cancer Cell International citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Cancer Cell International. 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

1. Ferguson CD. Do not phase out nuclear power - yet. Nature. 2011;471:411.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Choi J-K, Bowles S. The coevolution of parochial altruism and war. Science. 2007;318:636–40.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Yoshimura K, Onda Y, Fukushima T. Sediment particle size and initial radiocesium accumulation in ponds following the Fukushima DNPP accident. Sci Rep. 2014;4:4514.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Damanik FFR, Rothuizen TC, van Blitterswijk C, Rotmans JI, Moroni L. Towards an in vitro model mimicking the foreign body response: tailoring the surface properties of biomaterials to modulate extracellular matrix. Sci Rep. 2014;4:6325.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Islam MR, Speight JG. Peak Energy: Myth or Reality? Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2016.

An edited book

1. Borre K. A Software-Defined GPS and Galileo Receiver: A Single-Frequency Approach. Akos DM, Bertelsen N, Rinder P, Jensen SH, editors. Boston, MA: Birkhäuser; 2007.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Boureanu I, Mitrokotsa A, Vaudenay S. Towards Secure Distance Bounding. In: Moriai S, editor. Fast Software Encryption: 20th International Workshop, FSE 2013, Singapore, March 11-13, 2013 Revised Selected Papers. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2014. p. 55–67.

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 Cancer Cell International.

Blog post

1. Carpineti A. ESO Release Incredible View Of The Cat’s Paw Nebula [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2017 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/space/eso-release-incredible-view-of-the-cat-s-paw-nebula/

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

1. Government Accountability Office. HHS-Supported Research on Violence Prevention. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1993 Jan. Report No.: HRD-93-11R.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Latronica AN. The effect of emotion regulation on stress and the role of executive function [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2016.

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

1. Detrick B. Elevating His Game as Art Connoisseur. New York Times. 2016 Oct 19;D1.

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	Cancer Cell International
Abbreviation	Cancer Cell Int.
ISSN (online)	1475-2867
Scope	Cancer Research Genetics Oncology

Research and Writing Guides