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

Bandfield JL. High-resolution subsurface water-ice distributions on Mars. Nature. 2007;447(7140):64-67.

A journal article with 2 authors

Purugganan MD, Fuller DQ. The nature of selection during plant domestication. Nature. 2009;457(7231):843-848.

A journal article with 3 authors

Tremblay S, Shiller DM, Ostry DJ. Somatosensory basis of speech production. Nature. 2003;423(6942):866-869.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Liu T, Diemann E, Li H, Dress AWM, Müller A. Self-assembly in aqueous solution of wheel-shaped Mo154 oxide clusters into vesicles. Nature. 2003;426(6962):59-62.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Fink JK. Metallized and Magnetic Polymers. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2016.

An edited book

Meyer AL, Gullotta TP, eds. Physical Activity Across the Lifespan: Prevention and Treatment for Health and Well-Being. Vol 12. Springer; 2012.

A chapter in an edited book

Sabe M, Heupler F. Cardiac Output. In: Anwaruddin S, Martin JM, Stephens JC, Askari AT, eds. Cardiovascular Hemodynamics: An Introductory Guide. Humana Press; 2013:65-73.

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

Andrew E. Water, Water, Everywhere – Where To Drink In The Solar System. IFLScience.

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. National Security: Papers Prepared for GAO Conference on Worldwide Threats. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1992.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Toothaker RD. A Phenomenological Study of Millennial Students and Traditional Pedagogies. Doctoral dissertation. University of Phoenix; 2014.

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

Kanter J. Price-Fixing Inquiry Moves From BMW to Daimler and VW. New York Times. October 23, 2017:B3.

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