How to format your references using the Virchows Archiv citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Virchows Archiv. 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	Download the output style file
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

Hartzell HC (2008) Physiology. CaCl-ing channels get the last laugh. Science 322:534–535

A journal article with 2 authors

Ellis G, Silk J (2014) Scientific method: Defend the integrity of physics. Nature 516:321–323

A journal article with 3 authors

O’Riordan M, Moors MA, Portnoy DA (2003) Listeria intracellular growth and virulence require host-derived lipoic acid. Science 302:462–464

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Han Y-G, Yin Z-Q, Li H-W, et al (2014) Security of modified Ping-Pong protocol in noisy and lossy channel. Sci Rep 4:4936

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Institute of Management and Administration (IOMA) (2012) Cost Reduction and Control Best Practices. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Berg RH, Taylor CG (2009) Cell Biology of Plant Nematode Parasitism. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

A chapter in an edited book

Sinha R, Roop P, Basu S (2014) Models for SoCs and Specifications. In: Roop P, Basu S (eds) Correct-by-Construction Approaches for SoC Design. Springer, New York, NY, pp 55–72

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 Virchows Archiv.

Blog post

Hale T (2017) This Device Eats Polluted Air And Spits Out Power. 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 (1994) [Comments on DOD Data Center Consolidation Plan]. 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

Swann E (2014) Adult learning for healthy aging: An investigation of health literacy and technology use in older adults. Doctoral dissertation, Florida Atlantic University

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

Leland J (2017) Muslim Lives in the City. New York Times MB7

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	Virchows Archiv
Abbreviation	Virchows Arch.
ISSN (print)	0945-6317
ISSN (online)	1432-2307
Scope	Cell Biology Molecular Biology General Medicine Pathology and Forensic Medicine