How to format your references using the The American Surgeon citation style

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

Cruikshank DP. Planetary science. Generating an atmosphere. Science. 2010 Dec 24;330(6012):1755–6.

A journal article with 2 authors

Artis D, Spits H. The biology of innate lymphoid cells. Nature. 2015 Jan 15;517(7534):293–301.

A journal article with 3 authors

Bréon FM, Tanré D, Generoso S. Aerosol effect on cloud droplet size monitored from satellite. Science. 2002 Feb 1;295(5556):834–8.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Joh HM, Choi JY, Kim SJ, Chung TH, Kang TH. Effect of additive oxygen gas on cellular response of lung cancer cells induced by atmospheric pressure helium plasma jet. Sci Rep. 2014 Oct 16;4:6638.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Zheng Y, Xu X, Xu Z, Wang J, Cai H. Metallic Biomaterials. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2017.

An edited book

Bouvry P, Kłopotek MA, Leprévost F, Marciniak M, Mykowiecka A, Rybiński H, editors. Security and Intelligent Information Systems: International Joint Conferences, SIIS 2011, Warsaw, Poland, June 13-14, 2011, Revised Selected Papers. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2012. XVII, 401 p. (Lecture Notes in Computer Science; vol. 7053).

A chapter in an edited book

Baracca A, Franconi R. The Decisive Leap in the 1980s: The Attainment of Cuba’s Scientific Autonomy. In: Franconi R, editor. Subalternity vs Hegemony, Cuba’s Outstanding Achievements in Science and Biotechnology, 1959-2014. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. p. 55–73. (SpringerBriefs in History of Science and Technology).

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 Surgeon.

Blog post

Andrew E. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015. Functional Leg Muscle Developed From Stem Cells.

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. Computer Reservation Systems: Action Needed to Better Monitor the CRS Industry and Eliminate CRS Biases. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1992 Mar. Report No.: RCED-92-130.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Gajewski TJ. Exploring leadership styles from a mediator’s perspective: A phenomenological study examining four specific organizational leadership styles and their relationship to four mediation styles as summarized by Leonard L. Riskin [Doctoral dissertation]. [Malibu, CA]: Pepperdine University; 2014.

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

Kishkovsky S. A Tortured Voice of a Lost Russian Generation. New York Times. 2007 Dec 22;A4.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in parentheses:

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 Surgeon
ISSN (print)	0003-1348
ISSN (online)	1555-9823
Scope