How to format your references using the Spine citation style

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

Macilwain C. Sharing information is preferable to patenting. Nature 2013;498:273.

A journal article with 2 authors

Tregenza T, Wedell N. Polyandrous females avoid costs of inbreeding. Nature 2002;415:71–3.

A journal article with 3 authors

Gregg MC, Sanford TB, Winkel DP. Reduced mixing from the breaking of internal waves in equatorial waters. Nature 2003;422:513–5.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Han P, Lavoir A-V, Le Bot J, et al. Nitrogen and water availability to tomato plants triggers bottom-up effects on the leafminer Tuta absoluta. Sci Rep 2014;4:4455.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Saksena FB. Patient Studies in Valvular, Congenital, and Rarer Forms of Cardiovascular Disease. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2015.

An edited book

Lenarcic J. Robot Mechanisms. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

Trajman O, Crolotte A, Steinhoff D, et al. Database Are Not Toasters: A Framework for Comparing Data Warehouse Appliances. In: Nambiar R, Poess M, eds. Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking: First TPC Technology Conference, TPCTC 2009, Lyon, France, August 24-28, 2009, Revised Selected Papers. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009:31–51.

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 Spine.

Blog post

Davis J. The Incredibly Rare Night Parrot Spotted In Western Australia For The First Time In A Century. IFLScience. Available at https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/the-incredibly-rare-night-parrot-spotted-in-western-australia-for-the-first-time-in-a-century/. 2017, Accessed October 30, 2018.

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. Transportation Disadvantaged: Progress in Implementing the New Freedom Program Has Been Limited, and Better Monitoring Procedures Would Help Ensure Program Funds Are Used as Intended. GAO-07-999R; Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; July 19, 2007.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Nye KM. Crème de Pêche. Doctoral Dissertation; California State University, Long Beach; 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

Simonson J. Nothing Is Free. New York Times, September 25, 2017, A23.

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	Spine
Abbreviation	Spine (Phila. Pa. 1976)
ISSN (print)	0362-2436
ISSN (online)	1528-1159
Scope	Clinical Neurology Orthopedics and Sports Medicine