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

McCabe H. Galileo set for suicide flight. Nature. 2000 Jul 6;406(6791):8.

A journal article with 2 authors

Caldeira K, Wickett ME. Oceanography: anthropogenic carbon and ocean pH. Nature. 2003 Sep 25;425(6956):365.

A journal article with 3 authors

Jin Z, Li P, Xiao D. Enhanced electrocatalytic performance for oxygen reduction via active interfaces of layer-by-layered titanium nitride/titanium carbonitride structures. Sci Rep. 2014 Oct 22;4:6712.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Zanazzi A, Kohn MJ, MacFadden BJ, Terry DO. Large temperature drop across the Eocene-Oligocene transition in central North America. Nature. 2007 Feb 8;445(7128):639–42.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Cerroni L, Gatter K, Kerl H. Skin Lymphoma: The Illustrated Guide. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell; 2009.

An edited book

Wang L, Chen K, Ong YS, editors. Advances in Natural Computation: First International Conference, ICNC 2005, Changsha, China, August 27-29, 2005, Proceedings, Part III. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2005. LXI, 1326 p. (Lecture Notes in Computer Science; vol. 3612).

A chapter in an edited book

Pearlman NW. Inoperable Abdomino-Pelvic Tumors: Treatment with Radio-Frequency Ablation and Surgical Debulking. In: Hayat MA, editor. Gastrointestinal Carcinoma. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2009. p. 37–41.

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

Taub B. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Your Brain Connections Are As Unique As Your Fingerprint. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/brain/brain-connections-unique-fingerprint/

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. Information Resources: HCFA Must Better Justify Further Data Center Expansion. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1991 Sep. Report No.: IMTEC-91-65.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Ramos J. Surviving Childhood Bullying: Impact on Psychosocial Well-Being in Adulthood [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 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

Vlasic B. Auto Sales Explode, but Detroit Brands No Longer Dominate. New York Times. 2016 Jan 1;B1.

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