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

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

Bourzac K. Neuroscience: Rewiring the brain. Nature 2015;522:S50-2.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Straus SE, Chesney MA. Science and government. Enhanced: in defense of NCCAM. Science 2006;313:303–4.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Rabitz HA, Hsieh MM, Rosenthal CM. Quantum optimally controlled transition landscapes. Science 2004;303:1998–2001.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Tadokoro S, Shattil SJ, Eto K, Tai V, Liddington RC, de Pereda JM, et al. Talin binding to integrin beta tails: a final common step in integrin activation. Science 2003;302:103–6.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Hetherington S. How to Know. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell; 2011.

An edited book

[1]

Hassan OH, Abidin SZ, Anwar R, Kamaruzaman MF, editors. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Research of Arts, Design and Humanities (ISRADH 2014). 1st ed. 2015. Singapore: Springer; 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Marchuk O, Ralchenko Y. Populations of Excited Parabolic States of Hydrogen Beam in Fusion Plasmas. In: Shevelko V, Tawara H, editors. Atomic Processes in Basic and Applied Physics, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2012, p. 83–101.

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 Open.

Blog post

[1]

Andrew D. A Sixth Sense? How We Can Tell That Eyes Are Watching Us. 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. ADP Acquisitions: SSA Should Limit ADP Procurements Until Further Testing Is Performed. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1986.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Ray SJ. Departmentalized Classroom Environments Versus Traditional Classroom Environments in Second Through Fourth Grades: A Quantitative Analysis. Doctoral dissertation. Lindenwood 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]

Saslow L. Sorting Out their Goals, and Options. New York Times 2009:WE7.

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 Open
Abbreviation	Int. J. Surg. Open
ISSN (print)	2405-8572
Scope