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

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

Weiss BP. Planetary science. A vitrage of asteroid magnetism. Science. 2012 Nov 16;338(6109):897–8.

A journal article with 2 authors

Litchinitser NM, Sun J. APPLIED OPTICS. Optical meta-atoms: Going nonlinear. Science. 2015 Nov 27;350(6264):1033–4.

A journal article with 3 authors

Chklovskii DB, Mel BW, Svoboda K. Cortical rewiring and information storage. Nature. 2004 Oct 14;431(7010):782–8.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Olguin G, Yacou C, Smart S, da Costa JCD. Tailoring the oxidation state of cobalt through halide functionality in sol-gel silica. Sci Rep. 2013;3:2449.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Zhang KQT. Wireless Communications. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2015.

An edited book

Spaccapietra S, Bertino E, Jajodia S, King R, McLeod D, Orlowska ME, et al., editors. Journal on Data Semantics II. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2005. XI, 223 p. (Lecture Notes in Computer Science; vol. 3360).

A chapter in an edited book

Arrigo AP. Anti-apoptotic, Tumorigenic and Metastatic Potential of Hsp27 (HspB1) and αB-crystallin (HspB5): Emerging Targets for the Development of New Anti-Cancer Therapeutic Strategies. In: Calderwood SK, Sherman MY, Ciocca DR, editors. Heat Shock Proteins in Cancer. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2007. p. 73–92. (Heat Shock Proteins).

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 Journal of Minimal Access Surgery.

Blog post

Andrew E. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. The Secret Maoist Chinese Operation That Conquered Malaria – And Won A Nobel. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/secret-maoist-chinese-operation-conquered-malaria-and-won-nobel/

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. Management Agenda for the Presidential and Congressional Transition: Promote Transparency and Open Government to Enhance Civic Engagement and Foster Innovation. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2016 Nov. Report No.: D15091.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Moncur HB. Exploring primary caregivers’ perceptions of the effects of secondhand marijuana smoke on children: A quantitative study [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2014.

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

Saslow L. Route 110 Plan Worries Some Merchants. New York Times. 2006 Sep 3;14LI2.

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	Journal of Minimal Access Surgery
Abbreviation	J. Minim. Access Surg.
ISSN (print)	0972-9941
ISSN (online)	1998-3921
Scope	Surgery