How to format your references using the World Neurosurgery: X citation style

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

Jain KK. Tech.Sight. Biochips for gene spotting. Science. 2001;294(5542):621-623.

A journal article with 2 authors

Gallo RC, Montagnier L. Historical essay. Prospects for the future. Science. 2002;298(5599):1730-1731.

A journal article with 3 authors

Pascoli V, Turiault M, Lüscher C. Reversal of cocaine-evoked synaptic potentiation resets drug-induced adaptive behaviour. Nature. 2011;481(7379):71-75.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Zhang S, Zhang J, Baker AA, Wang S, Yu G, Hesjedal T. Three dimensional magnetic abacus memory. Sci Rep. 2014;4:6109.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hansen KL, Zenobia KE. Civil Engineer’s Handbook of Professional Practice. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2011.

An edited book

McGowan BL, Palmer RT, Wood JL, Hibbler DF, eds. Black Men in the Academy: Narratives of Resiliency, Achievement, and Success. Palgrave Macmillan US; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

Timilsina GR. Economic Impacts of Biofuels. In: Timilsina GR, Zilberman D, eds. The Impacts of Biofuels on the Economy, Environment, and Poverty: A Global Perspective. Springer; 2014:65-77.

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: X.

Blog post

Andrew E. Researchers Discover How Pac-Man Frogs Are Able To Hunt Large Prey. IFLScience. August 27, 2014. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/researchers-discover-how-pac-man-frogs-are-able-hunt-large-prey/

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. Maritime Transportation: Implications of Using U.S. Liquefied-Natural-Gas Carriers for Exports. U.S. Government Printing Office; 2015.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Sumner I. Quantum Wavepacket Ab Initio Molecular Dynamics: Simulating Quantum Nuclear Effects in Complex Systems. Doctoral dissertation. Indiana University; 2010.

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

Olmsted SA. DEPUTY MAYOR IDEA NOT NEW; Tammany Objection to the Charter Plan Regarded as Baseless. New York Times. November 2, 1936:BOOKS20.

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: X
ISSN (print)	2590-1397
Scope