How to format your references using the International Journal of Surgery citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for International Journal of 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

[1]

J.D. Kelly, Make diagnostic centres a priority for Ebola crisis, Nature 513 (2014) 145.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

C.H. Haney, F.M. Ausubel, MICROBIOME. Plant microbiome blueprints, Science 349 (2015) 788–789.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

J.W. Kirchner, X. Feng, C. Neal, Fractal stream chemistry and its implications for contaminant transport in catchments, Nature 403 (2000) 524–527.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

C. Yeh, F. Shimabukuro, P. Stanton, V. Jamnejad V., W. Imbriale, F. Manshadi, Communication at millimetre-submillimetre wavelengths using a ceramic ribbon, Nature 404 (2000) 584–588.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

V. Mackevičius, Introduction to Stochastic Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, Inc, Hoboken, NJ, 2011.

An edited book

[1]

M.L. Gavrilova, C.J.K. Tan, A. Sourin, eds., Transactions on Computational Science XXVIII: Special Issue on Cyberworlds and Cybersecurity, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

P. Enslin, M. Tjiattas, Democratic Inclusion and Lifelong Learning in a Globalising World, in: D.N. Aspin, J. Chapman, K. Evans, R. Bagnall (Eds.), Second International Handbook of Lifelong Learning, Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 2012: pp. 77–90.

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 International Journal of Surgery.

Blog post

[1]

J. Davis, Cold War Spy Satellites Used To Track Himalayan Glacier Retreat, IFLScience (2016).

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, Space Acquisitions: Committing Prematurely to the Transformational Satellite Program Elevates Risks for Poor Cost, Schedule, and Performance Outcomes, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2003.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

C.I. Iwuagwu, Preventing the Spread of HIV Among Homeless Youth in California, Doctoral dissertation, Capella 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

[1]

J. Hodgman, Bonus Advice From Judge John Hodgman, New York Times (2016) MM26.

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	International Journal of Surgery
Abbreviation	Int. J. Surg.
ISSN (print)	1743-9191
Scope	General Medicine Surgery