How to format your references using the Oncology citation style

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

Dustin ML. Immunology. When F-actin becomes too much of a good thing. Science. 2006 Aug;313(5788):767–8.

A journal article with 2 authors

Nagib DA, MacMillan DWC. Trifluoromethylation of arenes and heteroarenes by means of photoredox catalysis. Nature. 2011 Dec;480(7376):224–8.

A journal article with 3 authors

Yue H, Lay T, Koper KD. En échelon and orthogonal fault ruptures of the 11 April 2012 great intraplate earthquakes. Nature. 2012 Oct;490(7419):245–9.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Sato Y, Yasuhara K, Kikuchi J-I, Sato TN. Synthetic cell division system: controlling equal vs. unequal divisions by design. Sci Rep. 2013 Dec;3:3475.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Louis J-P. Control of Synchronous Motors. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc; 2011.

An edited book

Hult FM, editor. Directions and Prospects for Educational Linguistics. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2010.

A chapter in an edited book

Fleming P. The Indeterminacy of Desire and Practical Reason. In: Chan DK, editor. Moral Psychology Today: Essays on Values, Rational Choice, and the Will. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2008; pp 95–107.

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 Oncology.

Blog post

Hale T. This Is What Happens If You Flush Sodium Down The Toilet [Internet]. IFLScience. 2016 Nov [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/this-is-what-happens-if-you-flush-sodium-down-the-toilet/

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. Better Information Needed for Oversight and Evaluation of Selected Elementary and Secondary Education Programs. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1978.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Chotkevys DL. A grounded theory study to explore how nurses overcome barriers to spiritual care. 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

Whiteside K. Refusing to Let the Seizures Defeat Him. New York Times. 2017 Sep;B8.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

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	Oncology
Abbreviation	Oncology
ISSN (print)	0030-2414
ISSN (online)	1423-0232
Scope	Cancer Research General Medicine Oncology