How to format your references using the Neurosurgery citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for 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 reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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

Earle S. Q&A: Sylvia Earle on protecting our seas. Nature. 2010;465(7295):165.

A journal article with 2 authors

Pfeiffer BE, Foster DJ. Hippocampal place-cell sequences depict future paths to remembered goals. Nature. 2013;497(7447):74-79.

A journal article with 3 authors

Ahn CH, Triscone JM, Mannhart J. Electric field effect in correlated oxide systems. Nature. 2003;424(6952):1015-1018.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Thon M, Hosoi T, Yoshii M, Ozawa K. Leptin induced GRP78 expression through the PI3K-mTOR pathway in neuronal cells. Sci Rep. 2014;4:7096.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Masujima M. Applied Mathematical Methods in Theoretical Physics. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2005.

An edited book

Scales DC, Rubenfeld GD, eds. The Organization of Critical Care: An Evidence-Based Approach to Improving Quality. Vol 18. Springer; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

Brunner RD, Lynch AH. Opening the Regime. In: Lynch AH, ed. Adaptive Governance and Climate Change. American Meteorological Society; 2010:187-260.

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 Neurosurgery.

Blog post

Hale T. This Gloopy Liquid Is Able To “Pour Itself” Out Of A Cup. IFLScience. June 29, 2016.

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. The Army’s Risk Assessment of Chemical Munitions Transportation. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1987.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Works RF. Econometric Modeling of Exchange Rate Determinants by Market Classification: An Empirical Analysis of Japan and South Korea Using the Sticky-Price Monetary Theory. Doctoral dissertation. Capella University; 2016.

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

Crow K. The Gift Is a Subway Station, But Some Look It in the Mouth. New York Times. July 20, 2003:145.

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	Neurosurgery
Abbreviation	Neurosurgery
ISSN (print)	0148-396X
ISSN (online)	1524-4040
Scope	Clinical Neurology Surgery