How to format your references using the Laparoscopic, Endoscopic and Robotic Surgery citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Laparoscopic, Endoscopic and Robotic 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

Macilwain C. Critics blast US missile defence system as flawed. Nature. 2000;404(6780):799.

A journal article with 2 authors

Scott GR, Gibert L. The oldest hand-axes in Europe. Nature. 2009;461(7260):82-85.

A journal article with 3 authors

Stutzmann N, Friend RH, Sirringhaus H. Self-aligned, vertical-channel, polymer field-effect transistors. Science. 2003;299(5614):1881-1884.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Xing H, Wilkerson DC, Mayhew CN, et al. Mechanism of hsp70i gene bookmarking. Science. 2005;307(5708):421-423.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Asif SZ. Next Generation Mobile Communications Ecosystem. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2010.

An edited book

Ng I, Parry G, Wild P, McFarlane D, Tasker P, eds. Complex Engineering Service Systems: Concepts and Research. Springer; 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

Taylor LD. Description of Data Used from the Ongoing BLS Consumer Expenditure Surveys. In: Houthakker HS, ed. Consumer Demand in the United States: Prices, Income, and Consumption Behavior. Springer; 2010:79-88.

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 Laparoscopic, Endoscopic and Robotic Surgery.

Blog post

Hamilton K. Why Do Our Friends Want Us To Drink And Dislike It When We Don’t? IFLScience.

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. NASA: Compliance with Cost Limits. U.S. Government Printing Office; 2005.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

LeBlanc L. Group Home Placement for Children with Serious Emotional Disturbance: A Grant Proposal Project. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach; 2009.

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

Branch J. Fans, Please Rise (No, Not for Beer). New York Times. October 2, 2017:D1.

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	Laparoscopic, Endoscopic and Robotic Surgery
ISSN (print)	2468-9009
Scope