How to format your references using the Journal of the American College of Surgeons citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of the American College of Surgeons (JACS). 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

1. Piran T. Astronomy. Demotion looms for gamma-ray bursts. Science 2002;295:986–987.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Allmann S, Baldwin IT. Insects betray themselves in nature to predators by rapid isomerization of green leaf volatiles. Science 2010;329:1075–1078.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Pesaran B, Nelson MJ, Andersen RA. Free choice activates a decision circuit between frontal and parietal cortex. Nature 2008;453:406–409.

A journal article with 5 or more authors

1. Brashares JS, Arcese P, Sam MK, et al. Bushmeat hunting, wildlife declines, and fish supply in West Africa. Science 2004;306:1180–1183.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Martin JE. Physics for Radiation Protection. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2013.

An edited book

1. Kramer A, Merrow M eds. Circadian Clocks. Vol 217. Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Sirvent I, León T. Cross-Efficiency in Fuzzy Data Envelopment Analysis (FDEA): Some Proposals. In: Emrouznejad A, Tavana M, eds. Performance Measurement with Fuzzy Data Envelopment Analysis. Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2014:101–116.

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 the American College of Surgeons.

Blog post

1. Hale T. A Man Switched A Helicopter Engine Off Mid-Flight To Prove A Point. IFLScience 2016. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/physics/man-lands-helicopter-engine-settle-debate-degrasse-tyson/. Accessed October 30, 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

1. Government Accountability Office. Aviation Competition: Effects on Consumers from Domestic Airline Alliances Vary. 1999.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Creason PJ. The assessment of student learning outcomes at a California community college: Insight from faculty in a single department. 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

1. Corkery M, Walsh MW. Puerto Rico’s Crisis Draws Split in Congress and Muted White House Reply. New York Times 2015:B3.

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 the American College of Surgeons
Abbreviation	J. Am. Coll. Surg.
ISSN (print)	1072-7515
Scope	Surgery

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