How to format your references using the Cancers citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Cancers. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Drake, N. How to Catch a Cloud. Nature 2015, 522, 115–116.

A journal article with 2 authors

Gunanathan, C.; Milstein, D. Applications of Acceptorless Dehydrogenation and Related Transformations in Chemical Synthesis. Science 2013, 341, 1229712.

A journal article with 3 authors

Eccleston, A.; Cesari, F.; Skipper, M. Transcription and Epigenetics. Nature 2013, 502, 461.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

McComas, D.J.; Allegrini, F.; Bagenal, F.; Crary, F.; Ebert, R.W.; Elliott, H.; Stern, A.; Valek, P. Diverse Plasma Populations and Structures in Jupiter’s Magnetotail. Science 2007, 318, 217–220.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

van Gumster, J.; Shimonski, R. GIMP Bible; Wiley Publishing, Inc.: Indianapolis, IN, USA, 2010; ISBN 9781118256015.

An edited book

Yearbook of International Sports Arbitration 2015; Duval, A., Rigozzi, A., Eds.; T.M.C. Asser Press: The Hague, 2016; ISBN 9789462651289.

A chapter in an edited book

Merino, P.; Salmerón, A. Combining SPIN with Ns-2 for Protocol Optimization. In Model Checking Software: 17th International SPIN Workshop, Enschede, The Netherlands, September 27-29, 2010. Proceedings; Pol, J. van de, Weber, M., Eds.; Lecture Notes in Computer Science; Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2010; pp. 40–57 ISBN 9783642161636.

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 Cancers.

Blog post

Andrew, E. Scientists Discover New Type Of Ant-Decapitation Behavior In Tiny Flies Available online: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/scientists-discover-new-type-ant-decapitation-behavior-tiny-flies/ (accessed on 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 Small Business Act: NASA’s Disadvantaged Business Advocate Not Reporting to Proper Management Level; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1987;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Etchberger, J.F. The Cis-Regulatory Logic of Gustatory Neuron Development in Caenorhabditis Elegans. Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University: New York, NY, 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

LaFRANIERE, S.; Lehren, A.W. The Disproportionate Risk of Driving While Black. New York Times 2015, A1.

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	Cancers
Abbreviation	Cancers (Basel)
ISSN (online)	2072-6694
Scope	Cancer Research Oncology