How to format your references using the VirusDisease citation style

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

1. Biba E. Protection: the sunscreen pill. Nature. 2014;515:S124-5.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Boos WR, Kuang Z. Dominant control of the South Asian monsoon by orographic insulation versus plateau heating. Nature. 2010;463:218–22.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Oliet SH, Piet R, Poulain DA. Control of glutamate clearance and synaptic efficacy by glial coverage of neurons. Science. 2001;292:923–6.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Zhao K, Gu R, Wang L, Xiao P, Chen Y-H, Liang J, et al. Voluntary pressing and releasing actions induce different senses of time: evidence from event-related brain responses. Sci Rep. 2014;4:6047.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Boxer H. Profitable Day and Swing Trading. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2014.

An edited book

1. Kardel T, Maquet P, editors. Nicolaus Steno: Biography and Original Papers of a 17th Century Scientist. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Eychmüller S. Definition, Pathophysiology, and Assessment of Pain. In: Alt-Epping B, Nauck F, editors. Palliative Care in Oncology. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2015. p. 51–8.

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 VirusDisease.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. Natural Selection In Black And White: How Industrial Pollution Changed Moths. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015.

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

1. Government Accountability Office. Bankruptcy Reform: Value of Credit Counseling Requirements Is Not Clear. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2007 May. Report No.: GAO-07-778T.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Teeter CM. Characterizing the Spatial Density Functions of Neural Arbors [Doctoral dissertation]. [La Jolla, CA]: University of California San Diego; 2010.

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

1. Hubbard B. Powerful or Offensive? Ramadan Ad Depicting Would-Be Terrorist Proves Divisive. New York Times. 2017 May 30;A9.

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	VirusDisease
Abbreviation	Virusdisease
ISSN (print)	2347-3584
ISSN (online)	2347-3517
Scope	Virology Infectious Diseases