How to format your references using the Frontiers in Surgery citation style

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

Hambäck PA. Ecology. A green or a prickly world? Science (2010) 327:1583–1584.

A journal article with 2 authors

Brewer PG, Peltzer ET. OCEANS. Limits to marine life. Science (2009) 324:347–348.

A journal article with 3 authors

Greene CH, Monger BC, McGarry LP. Ecology. Some like it cold. Science (2009) 324:733–734.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Ryu DY, Shin K, Drockenmuller E, Hawker CJ, Russell TP. A generalized approach to the modification of solid surfaces. Science (2005) 308:236–239.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Padova T, Murdock KL. Adobe® Creative Suite® 5 Bible. Indianapolis, IN, USA: Wiley Publishing, Inc. (2010).

An edited book

Moniuszko A. Nuclear Medicine Technology Study Guide: A Technologist’s Review for Passing Board Exams. Patel D, editor. New York, NY: Springer. (2011). XII, 292 p. 69 illus., 22 illus. in color p.

A chapter in an edited book

Šunjić V, Petrović Peroković V. “Disconnection with Participation of Two Functional Groups.,” In: Petrović Peroković V, editor. Organic Chemistry from Retrosynthesis to Asymmetric Synthesis. Cham: Springer International Publishing (2016). p. 67–102

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 Frontiers in Surgery.

Blog post

Fang J. Huge DNA Study Assesses Genomes Of Iceland’s Population. IFLScience (2015) https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/heres-what-we-learned-icelands-2000-person-genetic-selfie/ [Accessed October 30, 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. GAO’s Authority for Involvement in Science and Technology Policy Issues. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. (1978).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Charoenphol D. Using robust statistical methodology to evaluate the performance of project delivery systems: A case study of horizontal construction. [Doctoral dissertation]. Washington, DC: George Washington 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

Schwartz J. Apologies. Really. And I Will Definitely Grow Up. New York Times (2017)BU14.

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	Frontiers in Surgery
Abbreviation	Front. Surg.
ISSN (online)	2296-875X
Scope