How to format your references using the Current Problems in Surgery citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Current Problems in 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

Lee R. The outlook for population growth. Science. 2011;333(6042):569-573.

A journal article with 2 authors

Berners-Lee T, Hendler J. Publishing on the semantic web. Nature. 2001;410(6832):1023-1024.

A journal article with 3 authors

Cowen RK, Paris CB, Srinivasan A. Scaling of connectivity in marine populations. Science. 2006;311(5760):522-527.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Wu J, Xu J, Liu B, et al. Publisher Correction: Chromatin analysis in human early development reveals epigenetic transition during ZGA. Nature. 2018;560(7718):E27.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Burnham D, Skilleås OM. The Aesthetics of Wine. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2012.

An edited book

Turner B, ed. The Statesman’s Yearbook 2008: The Politics, Cultures and Economies of the World. Palgrave Macmillan UK; 2007.

A chapter in an edited book

Przelaskowski A. Computer-Aided Diagnosis: From Image Understanding to Integrated Assistance. In: Pietka E, Kawa J, eds. Information Technologies in Biomedicine. Advances in Soft Computing. Springer; 2008:44-54.

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 Current Problems in Surgery.

Blog post

Andrew E. Rocks Formed From Plastic Found On Beach. IFLScience. Published June 5, 2014. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/rocks-formed-plastic-found-beach/

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. Highway Safety: Federal and State Efforts to Address Rural Road Safety Challenges. U.S. Government Printing Office; 2004.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Alsubaihi SI. Challenges for Women Academic Leaders to Obtain Senior Leadership Positions in Higher Education in Saudi Arabia. Doctoral dissertation. Pepperdine University; 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

Crow K. New Bus Shelters on the Way, Customized for Your Corner. New York Times. May 20, 2001:146.

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	Current Problems in Surgery
Abbreviation	Curr. Probl. Surg.
ISSN (print)	0011-3840
Scope	General Medicine Surgery

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