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

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

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 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

Jensen, G.J.: Cell biology. Protein filaments caught in the act. Science. 323, 472–473 (2009)

A journal article with 2 authors

Schorlemmer, D., Wiemer, S.: Earth science: microseismicity data forecast rupture area. Nature. 434, 1086 (2005)

A journal article with 3 authors

Lappala, A., Zaccone, A., Terentjev, E.M.: Ratcheted diffusion transport through crowded nanochannels. Sci. Rep. 3, 3103 (2013)

A journal article with 4 or more authors

LaHaye, M.D., Suh, J., Echternach, P.M., Schwab, K.C., Roukes, M.L.: Nanomechanical measurements of a superconducting qubit. Nature. 459, 960–964 (2009)

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Smith, C.L.: Distillation Control. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ (2012)

An edited book

Sito, G. ed: Hyperhidrosis: Clinician’s Guide to Diagnosis and Treatment. Springer International Publishing, Cham (2016)

A chapter in an edited book

Cocconcelli, M., Zimroz, R., Rubini, R., Bartelmus, W.: STFT Based Approach for Ball Bearing Fault Detection in a Varying Speed Motor. In: Fakhfakh, T., Bartelmus, W., Chaari, F., Zimroz, R., and Haddar, M. (eds.) Condition Monitoring of Machinery in Non-Stationary Operations: Proceedings of the Second International Conference “Condition Monitoring of Machinery in Non-Stationnary Operations” CMMNO’2012. pp. 41–50. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (2012)

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 VLDB Journal.

Blog post

Andrew, E.: High Blood Pressure May Protect Over-80s From Dementia

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: Computer Matching Act: OMB and Selected Agencies Need to Ensure Consistent Implementation. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (2014)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Burns, D.: Measuring the Outcome of At-Risk Students on Biology Standardized Tests When Using Different Instructional Strategies, (2017)

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

Fitzgerald, A.: Worlds in a Cell, (2017)

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	The VLDB Journal
Abbreviation	VLDB J.
ISSN (print)	1066-8888
ISSN (online)	0949-877X
Scope	Hardware and Architecture Information Systems