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

Kubin L (2006) Materials science. Collective defect behavior under stress. Science 312:864–865

A journal article with 2 authors

Truitt WA, Coolen LM (2002) Identification of a potential ejaculation generator in the spinal cord. Science 297:1566–1569

A journal article with 3 authors

Ferrari G, Stornaiuolo A, Mavilio F (2001) Failure to correct murine muscular dystrophy. Nature 411:1014–1015

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Nowacki M, Higgins BP, Maquilan GM, et al (2009) A functional role for transposases in a large eukaryotic genome. Science 324:935–938

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bolstad WM (2009) Understanding Computational Bayesian Statistics. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Elgamel MA (2006) Interconnect Noise Optimization in Nanometer Technologies. Springer US, Boston, MA

A chapter in an edited book

Bruns E, Ohlhorst D, Wenzel B, Köppel J (2011) Innovation Conditions in the Case of Solar Power Generation. In: Ohlhorst D, Wenzel B, Köppel J (eds) Renewable Energies in Germany’s Electricity Market: A Biography of the Innovation Process. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp 161–228

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

Carpineti A (2017) Charon Helps Pluto Keep Its Atmosphere. 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 (2009) Federal Transit Administration: Progress and Challenges in Implementing and Evaluating the Job Access and Reverse Commute Program. 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

Unison-Pace WJ (2015) Investigating generational differences of perceived uncivilized behaviors between students and faculty in nursing education. Doctoral dissertation, Capella 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

Markoff J (2016) Robert Fano, 98, a Designer of Computers. New York Times A25

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