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

Goldston D. Budget instructions. Nature. 2009;461(7260):25.

A journal article with 2 authors

Yurtsever A, Zewail AH. 4D nanoscale diffraction observed by convergent-beam ultrafast electron microscopy. Science. 2009;326(5953):708-712.

A journal article with 3 authors

Tseng CH, Gobell JL, Sperling G. Long-lasting sensitization to a given colour after visual search. Nature. 2004;428(6983):657-660.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Yang S, Tongay S, Yue Q, Li Y, Li B, Lu F. High-performance few-layer Mo-doped ReSe₂ nanosheet photodetectors. Sci Rep. 2014;4:5442.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Fan J. Multiscale Analysis of Deformation and Failure of Materials. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2010.

An edited book

Viigimaa M, Vlachopoulos C, Doumas M, eds. Erectile Dysfunction in Hypertension and Cardiovascular Disease: A Guide for Clinicians. Springer International Publishing; 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

Fletcher JG, Bharucha AE, Siddiki H. Dynamic MR Imaging of the Pelvic Floor. In: Taylor SA, DeLancey JOL, eds. Imaging Pelvic Floor Disorders. Medical Radiology. Springer; 2008:75-88.

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

Andrew E. Penguins Can Only Taste Salty And Sour. IFLScience. February 17, 2015. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/penguins-can-only-taste-salty-and-sour/

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. Justice Software Management. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1993.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Weisblatt BH. The Numinous on Russian Soil: A Depth Psychological Interpretation of Religious Experience in “The Brothers Karamazov.” 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

Schmidt MS, Apuzzo M. Mueller’s Moves Point to Inquiry Aimed at Trump. New York Times. June 15, 2017:A1.

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