How to format your references using the Surgery Today citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Surgery Today. 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 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. Fisher L. Avoid major disasters by welcoming minor change. Nature. 2015;527:9.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Schuster-Böckler B, Lehner B. Chromatin organization is a major influence on regional mutation rates in human cancer cells. Nature. 2012;488:504–7.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Gilman RT, Nuismer SL, Jhwueng D-C. Coevolution in multidimensional trait space favours escape from parasites and pathogens. Nature. 2012;483:328–30.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Chothia C, Gough J, Vogel C, Teichmann SA. Evolution of the protein repertoire. Science. 2003;300:1701–3.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Bittner M. Temporality: Universals and Variation. Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2014.

An edited book

1. Secchi C. Control of Interactive Robotic Interfaces: A Port-Hamiltonian Approach. Fantuzzi C, Stramigioli S, editors. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2007.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Coles LS. The Ethical Basis for Using Human Embryonic Stem Cells in the Treatment of Aging. In: Fahy GM, West MD, Coles LS, Harris SB, editors. The Future of Aging: Pathways to Human Life Extension. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2010. p. 63–86.

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 Surgery Today.

Blog post

1. O`Callaghan J. This Is The First Biofluorescent Turtle Ever Found. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015.

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. SSA’s Acceptance Testing of a Mass Storage System for Computerized Data Was Adequate. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1985 Mar. Report No.: IMTEC-85-5.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Flores E. An exploratory study on widows’ experiences following the loss of their spouse [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 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

1. Choi MHK. LaCroix Sparkling Water. New York Times. 2015 Mar 3;MM28.

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	Surgery Today
Abbreviation	Surg. Today
ISSN (print)	0941-1291
ISSN (online)	1436-2813
Scope	General Medicine Surgery