How to format your references using the Spinal Cord citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Spinal Cord. 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

Slack JMW. Origin of stem cells in organogenesis. Science 2008; 322: 1498–1501.

A journal article with 2 authors

Zhang W, Luck SJ. Discrete fixed-resolution representations in visual working memory. Nature 2008; 453: 233–235.

A journal article with 3 authors

Kühlbrandt W, Zeelen J, Dietrich J. Structure, mechanism, and regulation of the Neurospora plasma membrane H+-ATPase. Science 2002; 297: 1692–1696.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Turetsky A, Kim E, Kohler RH, Miller MA, Weissleder R. Single cell imaging of Bruton’s tyrosine kinase using an irreversible inhibitor. Sci Rep 2014; 4: 4782.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kapterev A. Presentation Secrets. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, 2011.

An edited book

Smith LM. Families, Education and Giftedness: Case Studies in the Construction of High Achievement. SensePublishers: Rotterdam, 2012.

A chapter in an edited book

Pollet BG, Staffell I, Adamson K-A. Energy Generation and Usage in South Africa. In: Staffell I, Adamson K-A (eds). The Energy Landscape in the Republic of South Africa. Springer International Publishing: Cham, 2016, pp 17–19.

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 Spinal Cord.

Blog post

Andrew D. Bioethicist: The Climate Crisis Calls For Fewer Children. IFLScience. 2016.https://www.iflscience.com/environment/bioethicist-the-climate-crisis-calls-for-fewer-children/ (accessed 30 Oct2018).

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. Essential Air Service: Changes in Subsidy Levels, Air Carrier Costs, and Passenger Traffic. U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 2000.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Elizalde K. Relationship between Latino adolescents and their mental health well-being: A quantitative study. 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

Shear MD, Haberman M. An Overseas Trip Comes at a Crucial Time, but Trump Is a Reluctant Traveler. New York Times. 2017; : A19.

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	Spinal Cord
Abbreviation	Spinal Cord
ISSN (print)	1362-4393
ISSN (online)	1476-5624
Scope	General Medicine Clinical Neurology Neurology

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