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

Yamanaka S. Elite and stochastic models for induced pluripotent stem cell generation. Nature. 2009;460(7251):49-52.

A journal article with 2 authors

Mokranjac D, Neupert W. Cell biology: Architecture of a protein entry gate. Nature. 2015;528(7581):201-202.

A journal article with 3 authors

Lane M, Robker RL, Robertson SA. Parenting from before conception. Science. 2014;345(6198):756-760.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Hale ML, Lurz PW, Shirley MD, Rushton S, Fuller RM, Wolff K. Impact of landscape management on the genetic structure of red squirrel populations. Science. 2001;293(5538):2246-2248.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hurst K. Primary Care Trust Workforce Planning and Development. Whurr Publishers Ltd; 2008.

An edited book

Dorizzi B, Chollet G, Petrovska-Delacrétaz D, eds. Guide to Biometric Reference Systems and Performance Evaluation. Springer; 2009.

A chapter in an edited book

Kagan V, Rossini E, Sapounas D. Text Analytics. In: Rossini E, Sapounas D, eds. Sentiment Analysis for PTSD Signals. SpringerBriefs in Computer Science. Springer; 2013:21-32.

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

Luntz S. Could This Be The Solution To The Mystery Of The “Alien Megastructure” Star? IFLScience. December 22, 2016. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/space/could-this-be-the-solution-to-the-mystery-of-the-alien-megastructure-star/

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. Vehicle Safety: Enhanced Project Management of New Information Technology Could Help Improve NHTSA’s Oversight of Safety Defects. 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

McCarthy BA. Mentoring’s Critical Components: Four Traditional Teachers’, Four Alternate -Route Teachers’, and Four Mentors’ Perspectives. Doctoral dissertation. Capella 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

Sisario B. Halsey Reaches the Top Of the Billboard Chart. New York Times. June 12, 2017:C3.

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