How to format your references using the Journal of General Virology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of General Virology. 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 reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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

Kouwenhoven L. Nanotechnology. Bouncing a C60 ball. Nature 2000;407:35–36.

A journal article with 2 authors

Esmaeili-Rad MR, Salahuddin S. High performance molybdenum disulfide amorphous silicon heterojunction photodetector. Sci Rep 2013;3:2345.

A journal article with 3 authors

Gauld SB, Dal Porto JM, Cambier JC. B cell antigen receptor signaling: roles in cell development and disease. Science 2002;296:1641–1642.

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Li CK, Séguin FH, Frenje JA, Rosenberg M, Petrasso RD, et al. Charged-particle probing of x-ray-driven inertial-fusion implosions. Science 2010;327:1231–1235.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Corten R. Computational Approaches to Studying the Co-evolution of Networks and Behavior in Social Dilemmas. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2014.

An edited book

Hauschild W. High-Voltage Test and Measuring Techniques. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

Joro T, Korhonen PJ. Comparison of Data Envelopment Analysis and Multiple Objective Linear Programming. In: Korhonen PJ (editor). Extension of Data Envelopment Analysis with Preference Information: Value Efficiency. Boston, MA: Springer US; 2015. pp. 55–64.

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 Journal of General Virology.

Blog post

Andrew E. Pollution May Be Promoting Lethal Tumors In Turtles. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/pollution-may-be-promoting-lethal-tumors-turtles/ (2014, accessed 30 October 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. Cooperative Actions Result in More Economical Computer Acquisition and Improved Security at the New Orleans Computer Center. LCD-77-118; Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 23 December 1977.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Araki PR. Golden Years Home Residential Care Facility for the Elderly. Doctoral Dissertation; California State University, Long Beach; 2017.

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

Hubbard B, Schmitt E, Mazzetti M. Ousted Saudi Prince Said To Be Confined to Palace. New York Times, 29 June 2017, p. A11.

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	Journal of General Virology
Abbreviation	J. Gen. Virol.
ISSN (print)	0022-1317
ISSN (online)	1465-2099
Scope	Virology