How to format your references using the Veterinary Research Communications citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Veterinary Research Communications. 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

McKay R (2014) Paleoclimate. Did Antarctica initiate the ice age cycles? Science 346:812–813

A journal article with 2 authors

Tang S, Guo A (2001) Choice behavior of Drosophila facing contradictory visual cues. Science 294:1543–1547

A journal article with 3 authors

Moore AW, Jan LY, Jan YN (2002) hamlet, a binary genetic switch between single- and multiple- dendrite neuron morphology. Science 297:1355–1358

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Poldrack RA, Clark J, Paré-Blagoev EJ, et al (2001) Interactive memory systems in the human brain. Nature 414:546–550

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Verdu J (2012) Oxidative Ageing of Polymers. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Gollmann D, Lanet J-L, Iguchi-Cartigny J (eds) (2010) Smart Card Research and Advanced Application: 9th IFIP WG 8.8/11.2 International Conference, CARDIS 2010, Passau, Germany, April 14-16, 2010. Proceedings. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

A chapter in an edited book

Bhowmik MK, Kennedy KJ (2016) ‘Out of School’ Ethnic Minority Young People: Multiple Data Sources, Their Meaning, and Extent of the ‘Out of School’ Phenomenon. In: Kennedy KJ (ed) ‘Out of School’ Ethnic Minority Young People in Hong Kong. Springer, Singapore, pp 79–114

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 Veterinary Research Communications.

Blog post

Andrew D (2016) Stardust Trapped Deep Within The Ocean Reveals A 2.6-Million-Year-Old Mystery. In: IFLScience. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (1996) Guaranty Agency Finances. 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

Ware SC (2014) Alcohol consumption and breast cancer risk in older women: A modifiable lifestyle risk factor. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach

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

Callahan K (2011) Quotation Of The Day. New York Times A2

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (McKay 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Tang and Guo 2001; McKay 2014).

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

Two authors: (Tang and Guo 2001)
Three or more authors: (Poldrack et al. 2001)

About the journal

Full journal title	Veterinary Research Communications
Abbreviation	Vet. Res. Commun.
ISSN (print)	0165-7380
ISSN (online)	1573-7446
Scope	General Medicine General Veterinary