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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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.
Thorne PW. Arctic tropospheric warming amplification? Nature. 2008;455(7210):E1-2; discussion E4-5.
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
Hanson B, Voss D. Sunrise. Introduction. Hinode. Science. 2007;318(5856):1571.
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
Shalm LK, Adamson RBA, Steinberg AM. Squeezing and over-squeezing of triphotons. Nature. 2009;457(7225):67-70.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
1.
Luo EC, Chang YC, Sher YP, et al. MicroRNA-769-3p down-regulates NDRG1 and enhances apoptosis in MCF-7 cells during reoxygenation. Sci Rep. 2014;4:5908.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
Shunmugaperumal T. Biofilm Eradication and Prevention. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2010.
An edited book
1.
Zagal JH, Bedioui F, Dodelet JP, eds. N4-Macrocyclic Metal Complexes. Springer; 2006.
A chapter in an edited book
1.
Yan J, Lv T, Guo L, Zhang Z. Credibility Evaluation of Information Service Platform Based on SOA-Extended. In: Lin S, Huang X, eds. Advanced Research on Computer Education, Simulation and Modeling: International Conference, CESM 2011, Wuhan, China, June 18-19, 2011. Proceedings, Part II. Communications in Computer and Information Science. Springer; 2011:26-32.

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
1.
Hamilton K. The Spookiest Places in the Universe. IFLScience. October 30, 2014. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/space/spookiest-images-cosmos/

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. NASA Procurement: Management Oversight of Contract Costs and Time Changes Could Be Enhanced. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1991.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1.
Ratliff DJ. Teen Parenting Curriculum: 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
1.
Rothenberg B. She Beat Her Stresses. Now Can She Beat Venus? New York Times. September 7, 2017:B9.

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 titleNeurosurgery
AbbreviationNeurosurgery
ISSN (print)0148-396X
ISSN (online)1524-4040
ScopeClinical Neurology
Surgery

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