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

Macilwain, C.: Ocean researchers dive to deep-sea stations. Nature. 406, 449 (2000)

A journal article with 2 authors

Kind, R., Yuan, X.: Geophysics. Seismic images of the biggest crash on Earth. Science. 329, 1479–1480 (2010)

A journal article with 3 authors

Abu-Raddad, L.J., Patnaik, P., Kublin, J.G.: Dual infection with HIV and malaria fuels the spread of both diseases in sub-Saharan Africa. Science. 314, 1603–1606 (2006)

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Tung, J., Primus, A., Bouley, A.J., Severson, T.F., Alberts, S.C., Wray, G.A.: Evolution of a malaria resistance gene in wild primates. Nature. 460, 388–391 (2009)

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Lastovetsky, A.: Parallel Computing on Heterogeneous Networks. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ (2003)

An edited book

Gourtsoyiannis, N.C., Ros, P.R. eds: Radiologic-Pathologic Correlations from Head to Toe: Understanding the Manifestations of Disease. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (2005)

A chapter in an edited book

Uesugi, I.: Interfirm Networks in Manufacturing Industry Agglomerations in Japan: Evidence from Survey Data. In: Watanabe, T., Uesugi, I., and Ono, A. (eds.) The Economics of Interfirm Networks. pp. 67–92. Springer Japan, Tokyo (2015)

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

Luntz, S.: Koalas Listed As Vulnerable Throughout Queensland, https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/koalas-listed-vulnerable-throughout-queensland/

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: Low-Income and Minority Serving Institutions: Management Attention to Long-standing Concerns Needed to Improve Education’s Oversight of Grant Programs. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (2009)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Martin, R.L.: Development of a Nutrition Program with Emphasis on Use of Social Media for Middle School Students, (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

Leguizamo, J.: … I Faced a Hostile Audience (Kids), (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