How to format your references using the Surgical Case Reports citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Surgical Case Reports. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

1. Sargent W. Obituary: J. Beverley Oke (1928-2004). Nature. 2004;428:483.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Ratcliffe JM, Nydam ML. Multimodal warning signals for a multiple predator world. Nature. 2008;455:96–9.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Belevich I, Verkhovsky MI, Wikström M. Proton-coupled electron transfer drives the proton pump of cytochrome c oxidase. Nature. 2006;440:829–32.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Takeuchi S, Ruhman S, Tsuneda T, Chiba M, Taketsugu T, Tahara T. Spectroscopic tracking of structural evolution in ultrafast stilbene photoisomerization. Science. 2008;322:1073–7.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Unmehopa M, Vemuri K, Bennett A. Parlay/OSA. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2006.

An edited book

1. Cleophas TJ. SPSS for Starters and 2nd Levelers. 2nd ed. 2016. Zwinderman AH, editor. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Matricon J, Giuffrida A. Cannabinoid Modulation of Dopaminergic Circuits in Neurodegenerative and Neuropsychiatric Disorders. In: Van Bockstaele EJ, editor. Endocannabinoid Regulation of Monoamines in Psychiatric and Neurological Disorders. New York, NY: Springer; 2013. p. 73–101.

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 Surgical Case Reports.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. Researchers Identify Two New Genetic Variants Linked To Increased Breast Cancer Risk. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015.

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

1. Government Accountability Office. Information Technology: OMB Can More Effectively Use Its Investment Reviews. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2005 Apr. Report No.: GAO-05-571T.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Stevens S. Aboard and Beyond [Doctoral dissertation]. [Washington, DC]: George Washington University; 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

1. Kenigsberg B. A Generous Peek Behind the Curtain. New York Times. 2017 Oct 17;C4.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

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	Surgical Case Reports
Abbreviation	Surg. Case Rep.
ISSN (online)	2198-7793
Scope