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

Chisholm, S.W.: Stirring times in the Southern Ocean. Nature. 407, 685–687 (2000)

A journal article with 2 authors

Sijen, T., Plasterk, R.H.A.: Transposon silencing in the Caenorhabditis elegans germ line by natural RNAi. Nature. 426, 310–314 (2003)

A journal article with 3 authors

Shim, S.-B., Imboden, M., Mohanty, P.: Synchronized oscillation in coupled nanomechanical oscillators. Science. 316, 95–99 (2007)

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Sibert, J., Hampton, J., Kleiber, P., Maunder, M.: Biomass, size, and trophic status of top predators in the Pacific Ocean. Science. 314, 1773–1776 (2006)

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Davies, J.: Implementing SSL/TLS Using Cryptography and PKI. Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, IN, USA (2010)

An edited book

Bai, Z.: Spectral Analysis of Large Dimensional Random Matrices. Springer, New York, NY (2010)

A chapter in an edited book

Batista, M.J., Martins, L.P.: Preliminary Results of a Risk Assessment Study for Uranium Contamination in Central Portugal. In: Pasman, H.J. and Kirillov, I.A. (eds.) Resilience of Cities to Terrorist and other Threats: Learning from 9/11 and further Research Issues. pp. 69–84. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht (2008)

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, D.: 22 Ways To Cut Your Energy Bills (Before Spending On Solar Panels)

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: DOD Schools: Additional Reporting Could Improve Accountability for Academic Achievement of Students with Dyslexia. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (2007)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Bowmar, J.S.: Building Energy Efficiency and Resilience in the United States, One Disaster at a Time: Fostering Green Building Principles through Disaster Assistance, (2012)

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

Viera, M.: Giants’ Manning Needs 12 Stitches After a Collision, (2010)

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