How to format your references using the Journal of Neurosurgery citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Neurosurgery. 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	Download the output style file
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

Buffett BA: Geophysics. The thermal state of Earth’s core. Science 299:1675–1677, 2003

A journal article with 2 authors

Schrag DP, Alley RB: Physics. Ancient lessons for our future climate. Science 306:821–822, 2004

A journal article with 3 authors

Roy S, Hsiung F, Kornberg TB: Specificity of Drosophila cytonemes for distinct signaling pathways. Science 332:354–358, 2011

A journal article with 7 or more authors

McKay D, White M, Pasienski M, DeMarco B: Phase-slip-induced dissipation in an atomic Bose-Hubbard system. Nature 453:76–79, 2008

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Garton AF: Exploring Cognitive Development: The Child as Problem Solver. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2008

An edited book

Münch J, Vierimaa M (eds): Product-Focused Software Process Improvement: 7th International Conference, PROFES 2006, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, June 12-14, 2006. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2006

A chapter in an edited book

Caragiannis I, Fanelli A, Gravin N: Short Sequences of Improvement Moves Lead to Approximate Equilibria in Constraint Satisfaction Games, in Lavi R (ed): Algorithmic Game Theory: 7th International Symposium, SAGT 2014, Haifa, Israel, September 30 – October 2, 2014. Proceedings, Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2014, pp 49–60

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 Neurosurgery.

Blog post

O`Callaghan J: Congress Passes $19.5bn NASA Bill, Includes Humans To Mars And Europa Mission. IFLScience:2017 Available: https://www.iflscience.com/space/congress-passes-195bn-nasa-bill-includes-humans-to-mars-and-europa-mission/. Accessed 30 October 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

Government Accountability Office: Information Technology: Early Releases of Customs Trade System Operating, but Pattern of Cost and Schedule Problems Needs to Be Addressed. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Small CR: An investigation on the effect(s) of different modes of intervention for weight management on HDL-cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol production among United States veterans. 2013

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

Greenhouse L: Supreme Court Hears Case Involving Lethal Injection. New York Times:A18, 2006

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference ².
This sentence cites two references ^2,4.
This sentence cites four references ^2,6–8.

About the journal

Full journal title	Journal of Neurosurgery
Abbreviation	J. Neurosurg.
ISSN (print)	0022-3085
ISSN (online)	1933-0693
Scope	Clinical Neurology Surgery