How to format your references using the Journal of the National Cancer Institute citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI). 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

Butler D. Quake triggers research expedition. Nature. 2003;423(6941):673.

A journal article with 2 authors

Kaidi A, Jackson SP. KAT5 tyrosine phosphorylation couples chromatin sensing to ATM signalling. Nature. 2013;498(7452):70-74.

A journal article with 3 authors

Pullium JK, Roble GS, Raymond MA. Emergency planning: Be prepared. Nature. 2014;514(7523):430.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Mao C, LaBean TH, Relf JH, Seeman NC. Logical computation using algorithmic self-assembly of DNA triple-crossover molecules. Nature. 2000;407(6803):493-496.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Wittcoff HA, Reuben BG, Plotkin JS. Industrial Organic Chemicals. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2012.

An edited book

Shirase K, Aoyagi S, eds. Service Robotics and Mechatronics: Selected Papers of the International Conference on Machine Automation ICMA2008. Springer; 2010.

A chapter in an edited book

Vassev E, Hinchey M. Fundamentals of Designing Complex Aerospace Software Systems. In: Hammami O, Krob D, Voirin JL, eds. Complex Systems Design & Management: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Complex Systems Design & Management CSDM 2011. Springer; 2012:65-80.

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 the National Cancer Institute.

Blog post

Luntz S. Aviation Biofuels Might Just Work For Cutting Greenhouse Emissions. IFLScience. March 15, 2017. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/aviation-biofuels-might-just-work-for-cutting-greenhouse-emissions/

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. Curriculum Case Studies Are of Questionable Quality but Helped Precollege Curriculum Activities. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1977.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Webber NT. Peptide Ion Conformation Studies and the 157 Nm Photofragmentation of Arginine Containing Dipeptides. Doctoral dissertation. Indiana University; 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

Hodara S. Exploring the Continuity of the Radical. New York Times. June 29, 2014:WE9.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in parentheses:

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 the National Cancer Institute
Abbreviation	J. Natl. Cancer Inst.
ISSN (print)	0027-8874
ISSN (online)	1460-2105
Scope	Cancer Research Oncology