How to format your references using the World Journal of Surgery citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for World 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

Smaglik P (2000) US industry starts to think big by acting small. Nature 408:621–622

A journal article with 2 authors

Karijolich J, Yu Y-T (2011) Converting nonsense codons into sense codons by targeted pseudouridylation. Nature 474:395–398

A journal article with 3 authors

Bhandawat V, Reisert J, Yau K-W (2005) Elementary response of olfactory receptor neurons to odorants. Science 308:1931–1934

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Song N-N, Ke Y-J, Yang H-T, et al (2013) Integrating giant microwave absorption with magnetic refrigeration in one multifunctional intermetallic compound of LaFe(11.6)Si(1.4)C(0.2)H(1.7). Sci Rep 3:2291

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Lane C (2011) Magnolia. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK

An edited book

Kern TA (2009) Engineering Haptic Devices: A Beginner’s Guide for Engineers. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

A chapter in an edited book

Blonder R, Sakhnini S (2016) What Are the Basic Concepts of Nanoscale Science and Technology (NST) that Should Be Included in NST Educational Programs? In: Winkelmann K, Bhushan B (eds) Global Perspectives of Nanoscience and Engineering Education. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 117–127

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 World Journal of Surgery.

Blog post

Carpineti A (2017) New Antiproton Measurement Deepens Mystery Of Why The Universe Is Made Of Matter. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/physics/new-antiproton-measurement-deepens-mystery-of-why-the-universe-is-made-of-matter/. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (1977) National Aeronautics and Space Administration Should Provide the Congress with More Information on the Pioneer Venus Project. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Carpenter DM (2009) Understanding the effect of conflicting information on medication adherence for vasculitis patients. Doctoral dissertation, University of North Carolina

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

Tankersley J (2017) Federal Debt Is Not Reduced By Gains in Market. New York Times B2

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	World Journal of Surgery
Abbreviation	World J. Surg.
ISSN (print)	0364-2313
ISSN (online)	1432-2323
Scope	Surgery