How to format your references using the Neurosurgical Focus citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Neurosurgical Focus. 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

Tredicucci A. Physics. Marriage of two device concepts. Science. 2003;302(5649):1346-1347.

A journal article with 2 authors

Kai L, Kaldenhoff R. A refined model of water and CO₂ membrane diffusion: effects and contribution of sterols and proteins. Sci Rep. 2014;4:6665.

A journal article with 3 authors

Papp B, Pál C, Hurst LD. Metabolic network analysis of the causes and evolution of enzyme dispensability in yeast. Nature. 2004;429(6992):661-664.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Costa E, Soffitta P, Bellazzini R, Brez A, Lumb N, Spandre G. An efficient photoelectric X-ray polarimeter for the study of black holes and neutron stars. Nature. 2001;411(6838):662-665.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kissell J. Mac® Security Bible. Wiley Publishing, Inc.; 2009.

An edited book

Gajski DD. Embedded System Design: Modeling, Synthesis and Verification. (Abdi S, Gerstlauer A, Schirner G, eds.). Springer US; 2009.

A chapter in an edited book

Rogowski M, Saeed K, Rybnik M, Tabedzki M, Adamski M. User Authentication for Mobile Devices. In: Saeed K, Chaki R, Cortesi A, Wierzchoń S, eds. Computer Information Systems and Industrial Management: 12th IFIP TC8 International Conference, CISIM 2013, Krakow, Poland, September 25-27, 2013. Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer; 2013:47-58.

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 Neurosurgical Focus.

Blog post

Andrew D. Relax, The Expansion Of The Universe Is Still Accelerating. IFLScience. October 29, 2016. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/space/relax-the-expansion-of-the-universe-is-still-accelerating/

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. USDA Systems Modernization: Management and Oversight Improvements Are Needed. U.S. Government Printing Office; 2011.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Equihua D. The Relationship of Mental Health and Family Factors to Parental Involvement in Their Children’s Education among Latina Mothers. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach; 2010.

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

St. John Kelly E. Why We Play Semipro. New York Times. October 5, 1997:1310.

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	Neurosurgical Focus
Abbreviation	Neurosurg. Focus
ISSN (online)	1092-0684
Scope	General Medicine Clinical Neurology Surgery