How to format your references using the The Veterinary Journal citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The Veterinary Journal. 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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
Wilson, E.O., 2005. Environment: early ant plagues in the New World. Nature 433, 32.
A journal article with 2 authors
Lu, Q., Lemke, G., 2001. Homeostatic regulation of the immune system by receptor tyrosine kinases of the Tyro 3 family. Science 293, 306–311.
A journal article with 3 authors
Tischer, T., Hörmanseder, E., Mayer, T.U., 2012. The APC/C inhibitor XErp1/Emi2 is essential for Xenopus early embryonic divisions. Science 338, 520–524.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Wagner, J.R., Brunzelle, J.S., Forest, K.T., Vierstra, R.D., 2005. A light-sensing knot revealed by the structure of the chromophore-binding domain of phytochrome. Nature 438, 325–331.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Broome, J., 2017. Weighing Goods. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Oxford, UK.
An edited book
Bourassa, M.G., Tardif, J.-C. (Eds.), 2006. Antioxidants and Cardiovascular Disease, Second Edition. ed, Developments in Cardiovascular Medicine. Springer US, Boston, MA.
A chapter in an edited book
Martin, T.F.J., 2012. Role of PI(4,5)P2 in Vesicle Exocytosis and Membrane Fusion, in: Balla, T., Wymann, M., York, J.D. (Eds.), Phosphoinositides II: The Diverse Biological Functions, Subcellular Biochemistry. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp. 111–130.

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 The Veterinary Journal.

Blog post
Andrews, R., 2016. Our Oceans Have Saved The World From Warming An Insane 36°C In The Past Century [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL (accessed 10.30.18).

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, 2014. Older Americans: Inability to Repay Student Loans May Affect Financial Security of a Small Percentage of Retirees (No. GAO-14-866T). U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
Beck, A.J., 2017. Determining Bed Failure Depth in Unconsolidated Submarine Sediments Using Particles in Cell Numerical Modeling (Doctoral dissertation). University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA.

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
Barron, J., 2017. Age Requirement At Chelsea Art Gallery: Over 60 Only. New York Times A20.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Wilson, 2005).
This sentence cites two references (Lu and Lemke, 2001; Wilson, 2005).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

  • Two authors: (Lu and Lemke, 2001)
  • Three or more authors: (Wagner et al., 2005)

About the journal

Full journal titleThe Veterinary Journal
AbbreviationVet. J.
ISSN (print)1090-0233
ScopeAnimal Science and Zoology
General Veterinary

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