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

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

Watanabe M. Part-time teaching: benefitting as a part-time teacher. Nature. 2003;424(6944):110-111.

A journal article with 2 authors

Kuo IFW, Mundy CJ. An ab initio molecular dynamics study of the aqueous liquid-vapor interface. Science. 2004;303(5658):658-660.

A journal article with 3 authors

Schirle NT, Sheu-Gruttadauria J, MacRae IJ. Structural basis for microRNA targeting. Science. 2014;346(6209):608-613.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Hakimi MA, Bochar DA, Schmiesing JA, et al. A chromatin remodelling complex that loads cohesin onto human chromosomes. Nature. 2002;418(6901):994-998.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Green SD. Making Sense of Construction Improvement. Wiley-Blackwell; 2011.

An edited book

O’Donohue WT, ed. Behavioral Approaches to Chronic Disease in Adolescence: A Guide to Integrative Care. Springer; 2009.

A chapter in an edited book

Gunasekara AS, Rubin AL, Goh KS, Spurlock FC, Tjeerdema RS. Environmental Fate and Toxicology of Carbaryl. In: Whitacre DM, ed. Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology Vol 196. Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. Springer US; 2008:95-121.

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 Spine Surgery.

Blog post

Andrew E. LUX Dark Matter Detector Releases First Results. IFLScience. October 30, 2013. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/physics/lux-dark-matter-detector-releases-first-results/

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. Older Driver Safety: Knowledge Sharing Should Help States Prepare for Increase in Older Driver Population. 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

Nevitt DS. Organic Geochemical Proxies as Indicators of Paleoenvironmental Conditions and Source Sediment Provenance in the Chenier Plain, Vermilion and Cameron Parishes, Louisiana, USA. Doctoral dissertation. University of Louisiana; 2017.

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

Dominus S. Just Dance. New York Times. July 20, 2016:MM20.

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 Spine Surgery
Abbreviation	Semin. Spine Surg.
ISSN (print)	1040-7383
Scope	Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Surgery