How to format your references using the International Surgery citation style

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

Bennett R. Journal club. A microbiologist wonders what turns us on. Nature. 2009 Sep 3;461(7260):15.

A journal article with 2 authors

Elowitz M, Lim WA. Build life to understand it. Nature. 2010 Dec 16;468(7326):889–90.

A journal article with 3 authors

Glazier AM, Nadeau JH, Aitman TJ. Finding genes that underlie complex traits. Science. 2002 Dec 20;298(5602):2345–9.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Colman-Lerner A, Gordon A, Serra E, Chin T, Resnekov O, Endy D, et al. Regulated cell-to-cell variation in a cell-fate decision system. Nature. 2005 Sep 29;437(7059):699–706.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hill R, Solt G. Engineering Money. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2010.

An edited book

Eisendrath SJ, editor. Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy: Innovative Applications. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. XII, 244 p. 6 illus., 5 illus. in color.

A chapter in an edited book

Stephan M, Underwood-Gregg D, Yackel E. Guided Reinvention: What Is It and How Do Teachers Learn This Teaching Approach? In: Li Y, Silver EA, Li S, editors. Transforming Mathematics Instruction: Multiple Approaches and Practices. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014. p. 37–57. (Advances in Mathematics Education).

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 Surgery.

Blog post

Andrew D. Why Do Paper Cuts Hurt So Much? [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/why-do-paper-cuts-hurt-so-much/

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. Highways: How State Agencies Adopt New Pavement Technologies. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1988 Aug. Report No.: PEMD-88-19.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Bain Butler D. How L2 legal writers use strategies for scholarly writing: A mixed methods study [Doctoral dissertation]. [College Park, MD]: 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

Rothenberg B. Kerber Loses Final and Bid for No. 1 Spot. New York Times. 2016 Aug 22;D2.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

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 Surgery
Abbreviation	Int. Surg.
ISSN (print)	0020-8868
Scope	Surgery