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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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.
Tranter, M. Biogeochemistry: Microbes Eat Rock under Ice. Nature 2014, 512, 256–257.
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
Crudgington, H.S.; Siva-Jothy, M.T. Genital Damage, Kicking and Early Death. Nature 2000, 407, 855–856.
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
Auerbach, B.D.; Osterweil, E.K.; Bear, M.F. Mutations Causing Syndromic Autism Define an Axis of Synaptic Pathophysiology. Nature 2011, 480, 63–68.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
1.
Zwierlein, M.W.; Schunck, C.H.; Schirotzek, A.; Ketterle, W. Direct Observation of the Superfluid Phase Transition in Ultracold Fermi Gases. Nature 2006, 442, 54–58.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
Dickson, E.F.G. Personal Protective Equipment for Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Hazards; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, 2012; ISBN 9781118422991.
An edited book
1.
Sound & Vibration 2.0: Design Guidelines for Health Care Facilities; Sykes, D., Tocci, G.C., Cavanaugh, W.J., Eds.; Springer: New York, NY, 2013; ISBN 9781461449867.
A chapter in an edited book
1.
Hersh, R.G.; Caligor, E.; Yeomans, F.E. Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP) Principles in Inpatient Psychiatry. In Fundamentals of Transference-Focused Psychotherapy: Applications in Psychiatric and Medical Settings; Caligor, E., Yeomans, F.E., Eds.; Springer International Publishing: Cham, 2016; pp. 121–156 ISBN 9783319440897.

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
1.
Andrew, E. You Could Be Flying In A Windowless Plane Within A Decade Available online: https://www.iflscience.com/technology/uk-company-wants-make-windowless-planes-within-decade/ (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
1.
Government Accountability Office Information Technology: Treasury Needs to Better Define and Implement Its Earned Value Management Policy; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 2008;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1.
Winchester, C.L. Alleghanian Plutonism in the Eastern Blue Ridge Province of the Southern Appalachians: Origin and Tectonic Setting. Doctoral dissertation, University of North Carolina: Chapel Hill, NC, 2013.

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.
Kenigsberg, B. Film Series. New York Times 2017, C26.

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 titleCancers
AbbreviationCancers (Basel)
ISSN (online)2072-6694
ScopeCancer Research
Oncology

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