How to format your references using the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery citation style

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

Lorimer DR. Astronomy. A pulsar bonanza. Science. 2005;307(5711):855-856.

A journal article with 2 authors

Ferreira PG, Starkman GD. Einstein’s theory of gravity and the problem of missing mass. Science. 2009;326(5954):812-815.

A journal article with 3 authors

Oldroyd GED, Harrison MJ, Paszkowski U. Reprogramming plant cells for endosymbiosis. Science. 2009;324(5928):753-754.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Davidson G, Wu W, Shen J, et al. Casein kinase 1 gamma couples Wnt receptor activation to cytoplasmic signal transduction. Nature. 2005;438(7069):867-872.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Zadora G, Martyna A, Ramos D, Aitken C. Statistical Analysis in Forensic Science. John Wiley & Sons Ltd; 2013.

An edited book

Bandt C, Falconer K, Zähle M, eds. Fractal Geometry and Stochastics V. Vol 70. Springer International Publishing; 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

Smits J. The Law of Contract. In: Hage J, Akkermans B, eds. Introduction to Law. Springer International Publishing; 2014:51-70.

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 Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

Blog post

Hamilton K. A Possible Alternative To Morphine – Inspired By Spit. IFLScience. Published February 14, 2017. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/a-possible-alternative-to-morphine-inspired-by-spit/

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. Health Information Technology: Early Efforts Initiated but Comprehensive Privacy Approach Needed for National Strategy. U.S. Government Printing Office; 2007.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Fonfa SL. The Impact of Increased Security on the Employment Options and Lives of People with Severe Disabilities. Doctoral dissertation. Capella University; 2008.

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

Pilon M. Bowling With World’s Best, Then Rejoining 8th Grade. New York Times. February 25, 2012:D1.

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	Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
Abbreviation	Plast. Reconstr. Surg.
ISSN (print)	0032-1052
ISSN (online)	1529-4242
Scope	Surgery

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