How to format your references using the World Neurosurgery citation style

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

Triendl R. Slim pickings for silicon specialists. Nature. 2002;416(6877):6-7.

A journal article with 2 authors

Hanrieder J, Ewing AG. Spatial elucidation of spinal cord lipid- and metabolite- regulations in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Sci Rep. 2014;4:5266.

A journal article with 3 authors

Araki T, Sasaki Y, Milbrandt J. Increased nuclear NAD biosynthesis and SIRT1 activation prevent axonal degeneration. Science. 2004;305(5686):1010-1013.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Pocivavsek L, Dellsy R, Kern A, et al. Stress and fold localization in thin elastic membranes. Science. 2008;320(5878):912-916.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Banks D. An Introduction to Thermogeology: Ground Source Heating and Cooling. Wiley-Blackwell; 2012.

An edited book

Engelhard M, ed. Synthetic Biology Analysed: Tools for Discussion and Evaluation. Vol 44. Springer International Publishing; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

Bodo E, Migliorati V. Theoretical Description of Ionic Liquids. In: Caminiti R, Gontrani L, eds. The Structure of Ionic Liquids. Soft and Biological Matter. Springer International Publishing; 2014:127-148.

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 Neurosurgery.

Blog post

Andrew D. Now We Can Edit Life Itself, We Need To Ask How We Should Use Such Technology. IFLScience.

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. Aviation Security: TSA Has Completed Key Activities Associated with Implementing Secure Flight, but Additional Actions Are Needed to Mitigate Risks. U.S. Government Printing Office; 2009.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Williamson CL. Hispanic Female Undergraduates Perception of Nursing as a Career Choice: A Phenomenological Study. Doctoral dissertation. University of Phoenix; 2012.

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. In 15 Hours, Submarine Kursk Is Raised From Sea Floor. New York Times. October 9, 2001:A7.

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	World Neurosurgery
Abbreviation	World Neurosurg.
ISSN (print)	1878-8750
Scope	Clinical Neurology Surgery

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