How to format your references using the The Lancet Oncology citation style

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

Olveczky BP. Neuroscience: Ordered randomness in fly love songs. Nature 2014; 507: 177–8.

A journal article with 2 authors

Knapp AK, Smith MD. Variation among biomes in temporal dynamics of aboveground primary production. Science 2001; 291: 481–4.

A journal article with 3 authors

Huo C, Ouyang J, Yang H. CuO nanoparticles encapsulated inside Al-MCM-41 mesoporous materials via direct synthetic route. Sci Rep 2014; 4: 3682.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Day JJ, Norman DB, Upchurch P, Powell HP. Dinosaur locomotion from a new trackway. Nature 2002; 415: 494–5.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Zlokarnik M. Scale-Up in Chemical Engineering. Weinheim, FRG: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 2006.

An edited book

Xia Y, editor. Neural Functions of the Delta-Opioid Receptor, 1st ed. 2015. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

Gábor A, Banga JR. Improved Parameter Estimation in Kinetic Models: Selection and Tuning of Regularization Methods. In: Mendes P, Dada JO, Smallbone K, eds. Computational Methods in Systems Biology: 12th International Conference, CMSB 2014, Manchester, UK, November 17-19, 2014, Proceedings. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2014: 45–60.

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 Lancet Oncology.

Blog post

Andrews R. Cats Understand Basic Laws Of Physics, According To Study. IFLScience. 2016; published online June 15. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/cats-understand-basic-laws-of-physics-according-to-study/ (accessed Oct 30, 2018).

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. Hazardous Materials Transportation: Better Guidance and Planning Could Enhance DOT’s Explosives Classification Oversight. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2016.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Kane BH. A Qualitative Exploratory Inquiry of Communicating in a Multigenerational Traditional-Rational Organization. 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

McKINLEY JC Jr. Released Man’s Murder Charge Stokes a Bail Debate. New York Times. 2017; : A22.

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 Lancet Oncology
Abbreviation	Lancet Oncol.
ISSN (print)	1470-2045
ISSN (online)	1474-5488
Scope	Oncology