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

Whipple FL. ESSAYS ON SCIENCE AND SOCIETY: Of Comets and Meteors. Science. 2000;289(5480):728.

A journal article with 2 authors

Conrado RJ, Gonzalez R. Chemistry. Envisioning the bioconversion of methane to liquid fuels. Science. 2014;343(6171):621-623.

A journal article with 3 authors

Herbst J, Heyne K, Diller R. Femtosecond infrared spectroscopy of bacteriorhodopsin chromophore isomerization. Science. 2002;297(5582):822-825.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Shen X, Mizuguchi G, Hamiche A, Wu C. A chromatin remodelling complex involved in transcription and DNA processing. Nature. 2000;406(6795):541-544.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Doldi L. Validation of Communications Systems with SDL. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2005.

An edited book

Al-Shaer E. Security and Resiliency Analytics for Smart Grids: Static and Dynamic Approaches. Vol 67. (Rahman MA, ed.). Springer International Publishing; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

De la cruz Guerrero RA, Juajibioy JC. On the Riemann Problem for a Hyperbolic System of Temple Class. In: Tost GO, Vasilieva O, eds. Analysis, Modelling, Optimization, and Numerical Techniques: ICAMI, San Andres Island, Colombia, November 2013. Springer Proceedings in Mathematics & Statistics. Springer International Publishing; 2015:75-88.

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

Carpineti A. Bright Spots On Ceres Much Younger Than Previously Thought. IFLScience. March 6, 2017. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/space/bright-spots-on-ceres-much-younger-than-previously-thought/

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. ADP Acquisitions: OCC’s Procurement of Laser Printers Is Proper but ADP Statutes Apply. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1987.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

McClenahan A. The Impact of Media Promulgated Fear on the Psyche: Love Will Prevail. Doctoral dissertation. Pacifica Graduate Institute; 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

Diamond J. Finding My Florida. New York Times. May 23, 2017:TR1.

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