How to format your references using the Journal of General Virology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of General Virology. 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 references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles 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

Koriat A. When are two heads better than one and why? Science 2012;336:360–362.

A journal article with 2 authors

Benedito R, Adams RH. Development. Aorta’s cardinal secret. Science 2009;326:242–243.

A journal article with 3 authors

Indjeian VB, Stern BM, Murray AW. The centromeric protein Sgo1 is required to sense lack of tension on mitotic chromosomes. Science 2005;307:130–133.

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Toon OB, Robock A, Turco RP, Bardeen C, Oman L, et al. Nuclear war. Consequences of regional-scale nuclear conflicts. Science 2007;315:1224–1225.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kramer H. Angewandte Baudynamik. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2013.

An edited book

Jandial R, Chen MY (eds). Regenerative Biology of the Spine and Spinal Cord. New York, NY: Springer; 2012.

A chapter in an edited book

Tresadern P, Cootes T, Taylor C, Petrović V. Face Alignment Models. In: Li SZ, Jain AK (editors). Handbook of Face Recognition. London: Springer; 2011. pp. 109–135.

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 General Virology.

Blog post

Davis J. Scientists Have Developed A Patch That Regenerates Damaged Heart Tissue. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/scientists-develop-patch-which-may-regenerate-damaged-heart-tissue/ (2015, accessed 30 October 2018).

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. Federal Communications Commission’s Effort To Implement the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. 089644; Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 12 February 1975.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Koval BC. Undergraduate Students in Paraprofessional Roles and their Use of Online Social Networks. 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

Vecsey G. Parallel Coaching Paths, Decades Apart. New York Times, 23 January 2011, p. SP2.

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	Journal of General Virology
Abbreviation	J. Gen. Virol.
ISSN (print)	0022-1317
ISSN (online)	1465-2099
Scope	Virology