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]

C.D. Jiggins, Evolutionary biology: Radiating genomes, Nature. 513 (2014) 318–319.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

A.L. Davidson, J. Chen, Structural biology. Flipping lipids: is the third time the charm?, Science. 308 (2005) 963–965.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

P. Goldreich, Y. Lithwick, R. Sari, Formation of Kuiper-belt binaries by dynamical friction and three-body encounters, Nature. 420 (2002) 643–646.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

C. Zhang, B. Wu, V. Beglopoulos, M. Wines-Samuelson, D. Zhang, I. Dragatsis, T.C. Südhof, J. Shen, Presenilins are essential for regulating neurotransmitter release, Nature. 460 (2009) 632–636.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

R. Geier, V. Angelmaier, C.-A. Graubner, J. Kohoutek, Integrale Brücken, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany, 2017.

An edited book

[1]

K. Murphy, F. Robertson, eds., Interventional Neuroradiology, Springer, London, 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

C.Y.-Y. Lin, L. Edvinsson, J. Chen, T. Beding, Future Perspectives and Policy Implications, in: L. Edvinsson, J. Chen, T. Beding (Eds.), National Intellectual Capital and the Financial Crisis in Brazil, Russia, India, China, Korea, and South Africa, Springer, New York, NY, 2013: pp. 71–91.

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]

S. Luntz, Greenland Shark Takes Record As Oldest Vertebrate By Living Up To 400 Years, IFLScience. (2016). https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/greenland-shark-takes-record-as-oldest-vertebrate-by-living-up-to-400-years/ (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

[1]

Government Accountability Office, Social Security Administration: Internet Access to Personal Earnings and Benefits Information, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1997.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

A.N. Chryssis, Design and fabrication of high-performance interband cascade tunable external cavity lasers, Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 2010.

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. Barron, A Historic Home Burns, and Suspicions Spread, New York Times. (2017) A25.

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

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