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 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

Gould J (2015) Cannabis: 4 big questions. Nature 525:S18

A journal article with 2 authors

Gehring WJ, Willoughby AR (2002) The medial frontal cortex and the rapid processing of monetary gains and losses. Science 295:2279–2282

A journal article with 3 authors

Tomoyasu Y, Wheeler SR, Denell RE (2005) Ultrabithorax is required for membranous wing identity in the beetle Tribolium castaneum. Nature 433:643–647

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Seifritz E, Esposito F, Hennel F, et al (2002) Spatiotemporal pattern of neural processing in the human auditory cortex. Science 297:1706–1708

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Braha A, Groza G (2006) Moderne Abwassertechnik. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, FRG

An edited book

Fenwick M, Wrbka S (2016) Flexibility in Modern Business Law: A Comparative Assessment, 1st ed. 2016. Springer Japan, Tokyo

A chapter in an edited book

Majer U (2006) Hilbert’s Axiomatic Approach to the Foundations of Science—A Failed Research Program? In: Hendricks VF, Jørgensen KF, Lützen J, Pedersen SA (eds) Interactions: Mathematics, Physics and Philosophy, 1860–1930. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp 155–184

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 (2014) Cancer Could Be As Old As Multicellular Life Itself. 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 (2013) Spectrum Management: Preliminary Findings on Federal Relocation Costs and Auction Revenues. 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

Caballero Suarez OL (2008) Effects of ion correlations in high density plasmas: Neutrino scattering and transport properties in supernovae and neutron star crusts. Doctoral dissertation, Indiana 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

Schmidt MS (2013) Car Chase, White House To Capitol, Has Fatal End. New York Times A12

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