How to format your references using the The American Journal of Surgery citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The American Journal of 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

Perkel JM. Programming: Pick up Python. Nature. 2015;518(7537):125-126.

A journal article with 2 authors

Long L, Ye H. How to be smart and energy efficient: a general discussion on thermochromic windows. Sci Rep. 2014;4:6427.

A journal article with 3 authors

Zinchuk V, Wu Y, Grossenbacher-Zinchuk O. Bridging the gap between qualitative and quantitative colocalization results in fluorescence microscopy studies. Sci Rep. 2013;3:1365.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Shi H, Zhang X, Weng YL, et al. m6A facilitates hippocampus-dependent learning and memory through YTHDF1. Nature. 2018;563(7730):249-253.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Wolbarst AB, Capasso P, Wyant AR. Medical Imaging. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2013.

An edited book

Marriott NG. Sanificazione Nell’industria Alimentare. (Gravani RB, ed.). Springer; 2008.

A chapter in an edited book

Davenport M. Shock. In: Sinha CK, Davenport M, eds. Handbook of Pediatric Surgery. Springer; 2010:25-28.

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 The American Journal of Surgery.

Blog post

O`Callaghan J. Mars Helicopter Drone Could Fly Across The Surface. IFLScience. Published May 11, 2017. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/space/mars-helicopter-drone-could-fly-across-the-surface/

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. Space-Based Lasers. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1982.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Ramberg KS. L’envers et l’endroit: The Other Side of the Cloth. Doctoral dissertation. Pacifica Graduate Institute; 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

Billard M. Just 30 Pieces of Glamour. New York Times. October 7, 2010:E9.

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	The American Journal of Surgery
Abbreviation	Am. J. Surg.
ISSN (print)	0002-9610
Scope	General Medicine Surgery