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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine. 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

Knoepfler P: My year as a stem-cell blogger. Nature 475:425, 2011

A journal article with 2 authors

Hommelhoff P, Higuchi T: Strong-field physics: Harmonic radiation from crystals. Nature 523:541–542, 2015

A journal article with 3 authors

Sarbu T, Styranec T, Beckman EJ: Non-fluorous polymers with very high solubility in supercritical CO2 down to low pressures. Nature 405:165–168, 2000

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Schulze DJ, Harte B, Valley JW, Brenan JM, Channer DMDR: Extreme crustal oxygen isotope signatures preserved in coesite in diamond. Nature 423:68–70, 2003

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Woolley T: Low Impact Building. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons, 2013

An edited book

Lee R (ed): Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Networking and Parallel/Distributed Computing. Heidelberg: Springer International Publishing, 2013

A chapter in an edited book

Backens J, Mweemba G, van Stam G: A Rural Implementation of a 52 Node Mixed Wireless Mesh Network in Macha, Zambia, in Villafiorita A , Saint-Paul R , Zorer A (eds): E-Infrastructures and E-Services on Developing Countries: First International ICST Conference, AFRICOM 2009, Maputo, Mozambique, December 3-4, 2009. Proceedings, Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2010, pp 32–39

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: Spine.

Blog post

Davis J: One In Eight Children Currently At Risk Of Measles In The U.S. IFLScience:2015 Available: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/one-eight-children-currently-risk-measles-us/. 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: DOD’s High-Risk Areas: Challenges Remain to Achieving and Demonstrating Progress in Supply Chain Management. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2006

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Bravo M: The development of a viable business plan: Analytics of 30 day readmission rates for hospitals and ancillary services. 2015

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

Kelly M: THE 1992 CAMPAIGN: Undeclared Candidate; Where Perot Exhibits A Lifetime of Memories. New York Times:18, 1992

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 ^3,4.
This sentence cites four references ^3,4,6,8.

About the journal

Full journal title	Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine
Abbreviation	J. Neurosurg. Spine
ISSN (print)	1547-5654
ISSN (online)	1547-5646
Scope	General Medicine