How to format your references using the Interactive CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Interactive CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery (ICVTS). 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 reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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] Vella D. ROBOTICS. Two leaps forward for robot locomotion. Science 2015;349:472–3.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1] Shinbrot T, Muzzio FJ. Noise to order. Nature 2001;410:251–8.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1] Dhuime B, Hawkesworth C, Cawood P. Geochemistry. When continents formed. Science 2011;331:154–5.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1] De Palo G, Facchetti G, Mazzolini M, Menini A, Torre V, Altafini C. Common dynamical features of sensory adaptation in photoreceptors and olfactory sensory neurons. Sci Rep 2013;3:1251.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1] Molloy M, Larner W. Fashioning Globalisation. John Wiley & Sons: Oxford, 2013.

An edited book

[1] Vincent J-L, editor. Yearbook of Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine. Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2006.

A chapter in an edited book

[1] Benedettini S, Roli A, Serra R, Villani M. Automatic Design of Boolean Networks for Modelling Cell Differentiation. In: Cagnoni S, Mirolli M, Villani M, Eds. Evolution, Complexity and Artificial Life Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2014; pp. 77–89.

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 Interactive CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery.

Blog post

[1] Luntz S. Mysterious Primordial Shark Caught In Waters Off Australia. IFLScience. IFLScience 2015 [accessed 2018] .Available from https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/frilled-shark-thrills-trawlers/.

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. DOE Loan Programs: DOE Has Made More Than $30 Billion in Loans and Guarantees and Needs to Fully Develop Its Loan Monitoring Function. U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC 2014.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1] Finley S. How online communication and social media networking are used in alcohol use treatment. Pepperdine University: Malibu, CA 2014.

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] Greenhouse L. Habeas Corpus Case Turns On Buttons Worn at Trial. New York Times. 2006 Apr. 18A24.

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	Interactive CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery
ISSN (print)	1569-9293
ISSN (online)	1569-9285
Scope