How to format your references using the Cancer Research citation style

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

Crocker J. The road to fraud starts with a single step. Nature. 2011;479:151.

A journal article with 2 authors

Liu C-Y, Bard AJ. Pressure-induced insulator conductor transition in a photoconducting organic liquid-crystal film. Nature. 2002;418:162–4.

A journal article with 3 authors

Bewley GP, Lathrop DP, Sreenivasan KR. Superfluid helium: visualization of quantized vortices. Nature. 2006;441:588.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Bininda-Emonds ORP, Cardillo M, Jones KE, MacPhee RDE, Beck RMD, Grenyer R, et al. The delayed rise of present-day mammals. Nature. 2007;446:507–12.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Rich P. Understanding, Assessing, and Rehabilitating Juvenile Sexual Offenders. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2011.

An edited book

Spirakis PG, Serna M, editors. Algorithms and Complexity: 8th International Conference, CIAC 2013, Barcelona, Spain, May 22-24, 2013. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

Grimm S, Watzke M, Hubauer T, Cescolini F. Embedded $\mathcal{EL}$ + Reasoning on Programmable Logic Controllers. In: Cudré-Mauroux P, Heflin J, Sirin E, Tudorache T, Euzenat J, Hauswirth M, et al., editors. The Semantic Web – ISWC 2012: 11th International Semantic Web Conference, Boston, MA, USA, November 11-15, 2012, Proceedings, Part II. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2012. page 66–81.

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 Research.

Blog post

Andrew E. New Eye Drops Can Dissolve Cataracts With No Need For Surgery. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015.

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. Transportation Security: Key Actions Have Been Taken to Enhance Mass Transit and Passenger Rail Security, but Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Federal Strategy and Programs. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2009 Jun. Report No.: GAO-09-678.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Garlapally V. Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles Impact on Metamorphosis and Thyroid Development in African Clawed Frogs [Doctoral dissertation]. [Edwardsville, IL]: Southern Illinois University; 2017.

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

Kishkovsky S, Smale A. Foes of Russia in Crimea Block Shipments of Food. New York Times. 2015;A11.

In-text citations

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

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 Research
Abbreviation	Cancer Res.
ISSN (print)	0008-5472
ISSN (online)	1538-7445
Scope	Cancer Research Oncology