How to format your references using the Journal of Surgical Education citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Surgical Education. 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

Schaefer BF. Geochemistry. When do rocks become oil? Science. 2005;308(5726):1267-1268.

A journal article with 2 authors

Neels JG, Olefsky JM. Cell signaling. A new way to burn fat. Science. 2006;312(5781):1756-1758.

A journal article with 3 authors

Reznick DN, Mateos M, Springer MS. Independent origins and rapid evolution of the placenta in the fish genus Poeciliopsis. Science. 2002;298(5595):1018-1020.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Slep KC, Kercher MA, He W, Cowan CW, Wensel TG, Sigler PB. Structural determinants for regulation of phosphodiesterase by a G protein at 2.0 A. Nature. 2001;409(6823):1071-1077.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Malina M. Delivering Sustainable Buildings. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2013.

An edited book

Glass BP. Distal Impact Ejecta Layers: A Record of Large Impacts in Sedimentary Deposits. (Simonson BM, ed.). Springer; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

Fujita S, Ito K, Godoy S. The Energy Gap Equations. In: Ito K, Godoy S, eds. Quantum Theory of Conducting Matter: Superconductivity. Springer; 2009:45-60.

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 Journal of Surgical Education.

Blog post

Fang J. Why Net-Casting Spiders Have Such Enormous Eyes. IFLScience. May 25, 2016. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/why-net-casting-spiders-have-such-enormous-eyes/

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. School Technology: Five School Districts’ Experiences in Financing Technology Programs. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1998.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Bentley KJ. Modern Public Market to Revitalize a Small Community. Doctoral dissertation. George Washington University; 2016.

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

Reynolds ML. Fingers Crossed Across Generations. New York Times. April 7, 2017:A18.

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	Journal of Surgical Education
Abbreviation	J. Surg. Educ.
ISSN (print)	1931-7204
Scope	Surgery Education