How to format your references using the Seminars in Pediatric Surgery citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Seminars in Pediatric 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

Bhutta ZA. Infectious disease: Polio eradication hinges on child health in Pakistan. Nature. 2014;511(7509):285-287.

A journal article with 2 authors

Crandall KA, Buhay JE. Evolution. Genomic databases and the tree of life. Science. 2004;306(5699):1144-1145.

A journal article with 3 authors

Deslauriers L, Schelew E, Wieman C. Improved learning in a large-enrollment physics class. Science. 2011;332(6031):862-864.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Kishida H, Matsuzaki H, Okamoto H, et al. Gigantic optical nonlinearity in one-dimensional Mott-Hubbard insulators. Nature. 2000;405(6789):929-932.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Simmons M, Dalgleish E. Corporate Actions. John Wiley & Sons Ltd; 2006.

An edited book

Brun del Re R, ed. Minimally Invasive Breast Biopsies. Vol 173. Springer; 2010.

A chapter in an edited book

Hargittai I. Peace Through Chemistry. In: Hargittai B, Hargittai I, eds. Culture of Chemistry: The Best Articles on the Human Side of 20th-Century Chemistry from the Archives of the Chemical Intelligencer. Springer US; 2015:25-27.

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 Seminars in Pediatric Surgery.

Blog post

Hale T. Video Of A Mock Occult Ritual At CERN Circulates Online. IFLScience. August 19, 2016. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/physics/video-of-a-mock-occult-ritual-at-cern-circulates-online/

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. Rail Safety: Improved Human Capital Planning Could Address Emerging Safety Oversight Challenges. U.S. Government Printing Office; 2013.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Chiang IC. A Historical Technique from a Modern Perspective: The Transcription Scordatura in Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra in E-Flat Major, K. 364. Doctoral dissertation. University of Cincinnati; 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

Oestreich JR. Company for a Winter Journey. New York Times. August 14, 2017:C6.

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	Seminars in Pediatric Surgery
Abbreviation	Semin. Pediatr. Surg.
ISSN (print)	1055-8586
Scope	Pediatrics, Perinatology, and Child Health Surgery