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

Rolston S: Quantum physics: Getting the measure of entanglement. Nature 528:48–49, 2015

A journal article with 2 authors

Brodribb TJ, McAdam SAM: Passive origins of stomatal control in vascular plants. Science 331:582–585, 2011

A journal article with 3 authors

Alexander JM, Diez JM, Levine JM: Novel competitors shape species’ responses to climate change. Nature 525:515–518, 2015

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Chen C-Z, Li L, Lodish HF, Bartel DP: MicroRNAs modulate hematopoietic lineage differentiation. Science 303:83–86, 2004

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Zhang W, Chou X, Shi T, Ma Z, Bao H, Chen J, et al: Measurement Technology for Micro-Nanometer Devices. Singapore: John Wiley & Sons Singapore Pte. Ltd, 2016

An edited book

Sinha SK, Satyanarayana N, Lim SC (eds): Nano-Tribology and Materials in MEMS. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2013

A chapter in an edited book

Barber C: Augmentation of Groundwater Resources through Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) Method, in Thangarajan M (ed): Groundwater: Resource Evaluation, Augmentation, Contamination, Restoration, Modeling and Management. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2007, pp 112–127

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

Carpineti C: This Parasite Infested Snail Looks Like Something From A Horror Movie. IFLScience:2017

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: Federal-Aid Highways: Federal Requirements for Highways May Influence Funding Decisions and Create Challenges, but Benefits and Costs Are Not Tracked. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2008

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Rouhani M: Overdose prevention and naloxone distribution: A grant project. 2013

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

Hodgman J: Bonus Advice From Judge John Hodgman. New York Times:MM20, 2017

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

This sentence cites one reference ².
This sentence cites two references ^3,4.
This sentence cites four references ^4,5,7,8.

About the journal

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

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