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

Lok C. Plans to reduce acceptable arsenic limit put on hold. Nature. 2001; 410: 503.

A journal article with 2 authors

Surani A, Tischler J. Stem cells: a sporadic super state. Nature. 2012; 487: 43–5.

A journal article with 3 authors

Peirce V, Carobbio S, Vidal-Puig A. The different shades of fat. Nature. 2014; 510: 76–83.

A journal article with 14 or more authors

Wozny C, Kivi A, Lehmann T-N, Dehnicke C, Heinemann U, Behr J. Comment on “On the origin of interictal activity in human temporal lobe epilepsy in vitro.” Science. 2003; 301: 463; author reply 463.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Vettese F. The Essential Retirement Guide. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc; 2015.

An edited book

Tavares JMRS, Luo X, Li S, editors. Bio-Imaging and Visualization for Patient-Customized Simulations. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014. XIV, 137 p. 71 illus p.

A chapter in an edited book

Goraş L, Vornicu I, Ungureanu P. Topics on Cellular Neural Networks. In: Bianchini M, Maggini M, Jain LC, editors. Handbook on Neural Information Processing. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013. p. 97–141.

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

O`Callaghan J. Photographer Accidentally Captures Stunning Time-Lapse Of SpaceX Rocket Landing [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available 2018 Oct 30, from https://www.iflscience.com/space/photographer-accidentally-captures-stunning-time-lapse-spacex-rocket-landing/

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. Railroad Safety: FRA’s Staffing Model Cannot Estimate Inspectors Needed for Safety Mission. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1990 Nov. Report No.: RCED-91-32.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Marquez RA. Examining coping skills used to deal with daily stressors of law enforcement [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 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

Fernandez M, Blinder A. Hurricane Harvey Crashes Into Texas Coast. New York Times. 2017; : A10.

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