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:

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

Levine M. Retrospective. Walter Gehring (1939-2014). Science. 2014;345(6194):277.

A journal article with 2 authors

Hoffmann DE, Rothenberg KH. Science and law. When should judges admit or compel genetic tests? Science. 2005;310(5746):241-242.

A journal article with 3 authors

Clement AC, Burgman R, Norris JR. Observational and model evidence for positive low-level cloud feedback. Science. 2009;325(5939):460-464.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Gandal MJ, Haney JR, Parikshak NN, et al. Shared molecular neuropathology across major psychiatric disorders parallels polygenic overlap. Science. 2018;359(6376):693-697.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Center for Chemical Process Safety. Guidelines for Implementing Process Safety Management Systems. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 1994.

An edited book

Kaiser MJ. Offshore Wind Energy Cost Modeling: Installation and Decommissioning. (Snyder BF, ed.). Springer; 2012.

A chapter in an edited book

Faccioli N, Manfredi R. Metodiche guida. In: Ruzzenente A, ed. Ecografia e Procedure Interventistiche Percutanee: Fegato, Vie Biliari e Pancreas. Springer; 2008:85-103.

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

Andrew E. True color of ancient sea creatures revealed by fossilized pigment. IFLScience. Published January 9, 2014. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/true-color-ancient-sea-creatures-revealed-fossilized-pigment/

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. No Child Left Behind Act: Assistance from Education Could Help States Better Measure Progress of Students with Limited English Proficiency (Spanish Language Highlights). U.S. Government Printing Office; 2006.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Nikolova S. Health Insurance Transitions of SCHIP-Eligible Children in Response to Higher Public Premiums. Doctoral dissertation. University of North Carolina; 2010.

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

Patterson MJO. Nature in All Its Lushness, From an Urbanite’s Mind. New York Times. May 20, 2012:NJ12.

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	Practical Radiation Oncology
Abbreviation	Pract. Radiat. Oncol.
ISSN (print)	1879-8500
Scope	Oncology Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging

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