How to format your references using the Oncotarget citation style

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

Webster M. A Cambrian peak in morphological variation within trilobite species. Science. 2007; 317: 499–502.

A journal article with 2 authors

Savill J, Fadok V. Corpse clearance defines the meaning of cell death. Nature. 2000; 407: 784–8.

A journal article with 3 authors

Reimand J, Wagih O, Bader GD. The mutational landscape of phosphorylation signaling in cancer. Sci Rep. 2013; 3: 2651.

A journal article with 14 or more authors

Thomas L, Hayashi M, Jiang X, Moriya R, Rettner C, Parkin SSP. Oscillatory dependence of current-driven magnetic domain wall motion on current pulse length. Nature. 2006; 443: 197–200.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Wolf EL, Medikonda M. Understanding the Nanotechnology Revolution. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2012.

An edited book

Scharfman HE, Buckmaster PS, editors. Issues in Clinical Epileptology: A View from the Bench. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2014. XXI, 339 p. 50 illus., 29 illus. in color p.

A chapter in an edited book

Jones JM, Lea-Langton AR, Ma L, Pourkashanian M, Williams A. Pollutant Formation and Health Effects. In: Lea-Langton AR, Ma L, Pourkashanian M, Williams A, editors. Pollutants Generated by the Combustion of Solid Biomass Fuels. London: Springer; 2014. p. 45–61.

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 Oncotarget.

Blog post

Hale T. Geminid Meteor Shower Will Peak Tonight, But The Supermoon Might Outshine It [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available 2018 Oct 30, from https://www.iflscience.com/space/geminid-meteor-shower-will-peak-tonight-but-the-supermoon-might-outshine-it/

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. Procedures for Evaluating Research and Development Contracts in the Department of Transportation. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1978 May. Report No.: PSAD-78-110.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Norton DA. O’Connor’s agent casual theory of free will: An evaluation [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 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

Tackett M. As Well-Educated Leave, Iowa’s Shift to G.O.P. Is a Matter of Degree. New York Times. 2017; : A12.

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	Oncotarget
Abbreviation	Oncotarget
ISSN (online)	1949-2553
Scope	Oncology