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 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

Schneider TD. The bottle. Nature. 2000;406(6794):351.

A journal article with 2 authors

Maselli V, Trincardi F. Man made deltas. Sci Rep. 2013;3:1926.

A journal article with 3 authors

Heil M, Rattke J, Boland W. Postsecretory hydrolysis of nectar sucrose and specialization in ant/plant mutualism. Science. 2005;308(5721):560-563.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Packer C, Hilborn R, Mosser A, et al. Ecological change, group territoriality, and population dynamics in Serengeti lions. Science. 2005;307(5708):390-393.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Rosier JA, Martens MA, Thomas JR. Global New Drug Development. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2014.

An edited book

Rocha Á, Correia AM, Tan FB, Stroetmann KA, eds. New Perspectives in Information Systems and Technologies, Volume 1. Vol 275. Springer International Publishing; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

Faure C. Visceral Sensitivity. In: Faure C, Di Lorenzo C, Thapar N, eds. Pediatric Neurogastroenterology: Gastrointestinal Motility and Functional Disorders in Children. Humana Press; 2013:37-48.

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

Davis J. Global Coral Bleaching Event Declared. 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. Status Information: FAA’s Year 2000 Business Continuity and Contingency Planning Efforts Are Ongoing. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1998.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Mills LM. A Mentoring Program for Foster Youth Transitioning into Adulthood: A Grant Proposal. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach; 2014.

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

Gustines GG. Tapping ’70s TV to Expand a Comic Book Lineup. New York Times. July 18, 2016:B2.

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