Research and Writing Guides

Writing a paper? Don't get lost.

English 日本語 Deutsch

How to format your references using the Practical Radiation Oncology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Practical Radiation 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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
1.
Mirabel IF. Astronomy. Very energetic gamma-rays from microquasars and binary pulsars. Science. 2006;312(5781):1759-1760.
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
Abrams NE, Primack JR. Essays on science and society. Cosmology and 21st-century culture. Science. 2001;293(5536):1769-1770.
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
Cordier P, Amodeo J, Carrez P. Modelling the rheology of MgO under Earth’s mantle pressure, temperature and strain rates. Nature. 2012;481(7380):177-180.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
1.
Tanaka S, Sugiura T, Yamashita S, Dohi Y, Kimura G, Ohte N. Differential response of central blood pressure to isometric and isotonic exercises. Sci Rep. 2014;4:5439.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
Davey KJ. Building Winning Algorithmic Trading Systems. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2014.
An edited book
1.
Peris-Ortiz M, Álvarez-García J, eds. Action-Based Quality Management: Strategy and Tools for Continuous Improvement. Springer International Publishing; 2014.
A chapter in an edited book
1.
Rivero AEC. Multiplicative Structure of the Resolvent Matrix for the Truncated Hausdorff Matrix Moment Problem. In: Alpay D, Kirstein B, eds. Interpolation, Schur Functions and Moment Problems II. Springer; 2012:193-210.

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 Practical Radiation Oncology.

Blog post
1.
Hale T. Stone Age Cannibals Didn’t Just Eat Each Other For The Calories. IFLScience. Published April 6, 2017. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/stone-age-cannibals-didnt-just-eat-eachother-for-the-calories/

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
1.
Government Accountability Office. Follow-up Review on Assistance to War Victims in Vietnam. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1972.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1.
Bergemann E. Exploring Psychotherapist Empathic Attunement from a Psychoneurobiological Perspective: Is Empathy Enhanced by Yoga and Meditation? Doctoral dissertation. Pacifica Graduate Institute; 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
1.
Brantley B. A Storyteller’s Private Dystopias. New York Times. May 11, 2017:C1.

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 titlePractical Radiation Oncology
AbbreviationPract. Radiat. Oncol.
ISSN (print)1879-8500
ScopeOncology
Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging

Other styles