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

Gewin V (2003) Biosphere owner sues sponsor. Nature 422:461

A journal article with 2 authors

Hattori M, Gouaux E (2012) Molecular mechanism of ATP binding and ion channel activation in P2X receptors. Nature 485:207–212

A journal article with 3 authors

Hurtley S, Ash C, Roberts L (2010) Tuberculosis & malaria. Landscapes of infection. Introduction. Science 328:841

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Azaele S, Pigolotti S, Banavar JR, Maritan A (2006) Dynamical evolution of ecosystems. Nature 444:926–928

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

CCPS (2006) Safe Design and Operation of Process Vents and Emission Control Systems. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Bhamidimarri R, Liu A (2016) Engineering and Enterprise: Inspiring Innovation, 1st ed. 2016. Springer International Publishing, Cham

A chapter in an edited book

Sheaff MT, Singh N (2013) The Thyroid Gland. In: Singh N (ed) Cytopathology: An Introduction. Springer, London, pp 143–178

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

Andrew E (2015) Peanut The Turtle Still Alive And Saving The World’s Oceans. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/peanut-turtle-still-alive-and-saving-worlds-oceans/. 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 (2007) Financial Literacy and Education Commission: Further Progress Needed to Ensure an Effective National Strategy. 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

Zavala M (2009) Latinos’ attitudes towards receiving mental health services. 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

Koblin J (2017) Hackers Briefly Seize HBO’s Twitter Account in the Latest in a Series of Breaches. New York Times B3

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