How to format your references using the European Surgical Research citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for European Surgical 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

Gershon D. The economic impact of Silicon Valley’s immigrant entrepreneurs. Nature. 2000 Jun;405(6786):598.

A journal article with 2 authors

Elderfield H, Rickaby RE. Oceanic Cd/P ratio and nutrient utilization in the glacial Southern Ocean. Nature. 2000 May;405(6784):305–10.

A journal article with 3 authors

MacMicking JD, Taylor GA, McKinney JD. Immune control of tuberculosis by IFN-gamma-inducible LRG-47. Science. 2003 Oct;302(5645):654–9.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Silva GA, Czeisler C, Niece KL, Beniash E, Harrington DA, Kessler JA, et al. Selective differentiation of neural progenitor cells by high-epitope density nanofibers. Science. 2004 Feb;303(5662):1352–5.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Schober H. Transparent Shells. Berlin, Germany: Wilhelm Ernst & Sohn, Verlag für Architektur und technische Wissenschaften GmbH & Co. KG; 2015.

An edited book

Breunig M, Al-Doori M, Butwilowski E, Kuper PV, Benner J, Haefele KH, editors. 3D Geoinformation Science: The Selected Papers of the 3D GeoInfo 2014. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

Ohsawa Y. Scenario Maps on Situational Switch Model, Applied to Blood-Test Data for Hepatitis C Patients. In: Ohsawa Y, Tsumoto S, editors. Chance Discoveries in Real World Decision Making: Data-based Interaction of Human Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2006; pp 69–81.

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 European Surgical Research.

Blog post

Andrew E. What Will Earth Look Like 100 Million Years From Now? [Internet]. IFLScience. 2015 Jun

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. School Bullying: Extent of Legal Protections for Vulnerable Groups Needs to Be More Fully Assessed. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2012.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Ellerbrook SL. Exploring the efficiency and effectiveness of teacher selection tools: The effects on the total group with a focus on the gender sub-groups. 2009

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

Feeney K. Getting Ribs Right, Slowly. New York Times. 2011 Aug;NJ6.

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	European Surgical Research
Abbreviation	Eur. Surg. Res.
ISSN (print)	0014-312X
ISSN (online)	1421-9921
Scope	Surgery