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

Smith R. Making hard light sharper. Nature 2000;404:345, 347.

A journal article with 2 authors

Bercovici D, Karato S-I. Whole-mantle convection and the transition-zone water filter. Nature 2003;425:39–44.

A journal article with 3 authors

Tilmann F, Ni J, INDEPTH III Seismic Team. Seismic imaging of the downwelling Indian lithosphere beneath central Tibet. Science 2003;300:1424–7.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Jaakola V-P, Griffith MT, Hanson MA, et al. The 2.6 angstrom crystal structure of a human A2A adenosine receptor bound to an antagonist. Science 2008;322:1211–7.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Lawless HT. Quantitative Sensory Analysis. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons; 2013.

An edited book

Patton W. Career Development and Systems Theory: Connecting Theory and Practice. Rotterdam: SensePublishers; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

Ledermann JA, Raja FA. Mucinous Cancers: Ovary. In: Reed N, Green JA, Gershenson DM, et al., eds. Rare and Uncommon Gynecological Cancers: A Clinical Guide. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011:67–73.

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 Spine.

Blog post

Luntz S. Astronomers Observe Black Hole Choking On A Star 2.9 Billion Light-Years Away. IFLScience. Available at https://www.iflscience.com/space/flash-explained-black-hole-eating-star/. 2015, 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. Comparison of States’ Highway Construction Costs. GAO-04-113R; Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; November 3, 2003.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Gao S. Characterization of the TAT cell penetrating peptide and directed evolution of new cell penetrating peptides for protein and nucleotide delivery to neuronal -like cells. Doctoral Dissertation; Columbia University; 2009.

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

Kelly DA. New Audio Books Pack a Lot More Prose. New York Times, May 14, 2006, TR6.

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