How to format your references using the The Spine Journal citation style

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

[1]

Moore P. Photocopiers for DNA. Nature 2005;435:237.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Calzolari A, Nardelli MB. Dielectric properties and Raman spectra of ZnO from a first principles finite-differences/finite-fields approach. Sci Rep 2013;3:2999.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Eberhardt MV, Lee CY, Liu RH. Antioxidant activity of fresh apples. Nature 2000;405:903–4.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Head JW, Chapman CR, Strom RG, Fassett CI, Denevi BW, Blewett DT, et al. Flood volcanism in the northern high latitudes of Mercury revealed by MESSENGER. Science 2011;333:1853–6.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Gerardi MH. Settleability Problems and Loss of Solids in the Activated Sludge Process. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2003.

An edited book

[1]

Stephanidis C, Antona M, editors. Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Design for All and Accessibility Practice: 8th International Conference, UAHCI 2014, Held as Part of HCI International 2014, Heraklion, Crete, Greece, June 22-27, 2014, Proceedings, Part IV. vol. 8516. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Man J, Goldberg DJ. Laser Treatment of Unwanted Hair. In: Goldberg DJ, editor. Laser Dermatology, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013, p. 65–88.

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 Spine Journal.

Blog post

[1]

Andrew E. Could basic life exist on Titan? IFLScience 2013. https://www.iflscience.com/space/could-basic-life-exist-titan/ (accessed October 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

[1]

Government Accountability Office. Federal Research: Concerns About the Superconducting Super Collider. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1992.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Peters A. The mark of gender: Depicting power and the female body in colonial Peru. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach, 2009.

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

[1]

Hirshman L. Where Are the New Jobs for Women? New York Times 2008:A35.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

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 Spine Journal
Abbreviation	Spine J.
ISSN (print)	1529-9430
Scope	Clinical Neurology Surgery