How to format your references using the Oncotarget citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Oncotarget. 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

Carbone A. Information measure for long-range correlated sequences: the case of the 24 human chromosomes. Sci Rep. 2013; 3: 2721.

A journal article with 2 authors

Ogata H, Claverie J-M. Microbiology. How to infect a Mimivirus. Science. 2008; 321: 1305–6.

A journal article with 3 authors

Xu X, Su Y, Fan ZH. Cotinine concentration in serum correlates with tobacco smoke-induced emphysema in mice. Sci Rep. 2014; 4: 3864.

A journal article with 14 or more authors

Pedersen IM, Cheng G, Wieland S, Volinia S, Croce CM, Chisari FV, David M. Interferon modulation of cellular microRNAs as an antiviral mechanism. Nature. 2007; 449: 919–22.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Waxman AB. Rogues of Wall Street. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2017.

An edited book

Boumerdassi S, Renault É, Bouzefrane S, editors. Mobile, Secure, and Programmable Networking: Second International Conference, MSPN 2016, Paris, France, June 1-3, 2016, Revised Selected Papers. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. X, 225 p. 100 illus p.

A chapter in an edited book

Artyukov IA, Busarov AS, Popov NL, Vinogradov AV. Optical Transforms Related to Coherent Imaging of Inclined Objects. In: Sebban S, Gautier J, Ros D, Zeitoun P, editors. X-Ray Lasers 2012: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on X-Ray Lasers, 11–15 June 2012, Paris, France. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014. p. 19–27.

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 Oncotarget.

Blog post

Andrew E. Researchers Use LED Device To Remotely Control A Mouse [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available 2018 Oct 30, from https://www.iflscience.com/brain/researchers-use-led-device-remotely-control-mouse/

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. Increased Use of Expanded Function Dental Auxiliaries Would Benefit Consumers, Dentists, and Taxpayers. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1980 Mar. Report No.: HRD-80-51.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Lim L. Dual-class vs. single-class firms: Information environment [Doctoral dissertation]. [Washington, DC]: George Washington 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

Sturm J. On the Move. New York Times. 2017; : BR22.

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	Oncotarget
Abbreviation	Oncotarget
ISSN (online)	1949-2553
Scope	Oncology