Journal Title Abbreviations
     
Journal titles in bibliographic citations, except one-word titles, must be abbreviated according to established
rules. The abbreviations used in Zoological Record are correct, as are those shown in the printed lists BIOSIS
Serials Sources (shelved with Biological Abstracts) and List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus (i.e.
Medline).
     
Briefly, the rules for abbreviating journal titles are as follows.
     
1. Know the full title of the journal--some indexes and abstracts and databases omit important words from titles.
     
2. Omit prepositions (for, from, in, of, on, to), articles (a, an, the), and conjunctions (and).
     
3. Abbreviate nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. A list of standard abbreviations is given in Scientific Style
and Format (Council of Biology Editors Style Manual Committee 1994), page 744.
     
  a. Leave enough of each word to be recognizable.
   
Exceptions: J for Journal  
  Q for Quarterly  
  Z for Zeitschrift  
     
  b. Stop after a consonant; if several consonants occur consecutively, stop after the last of them.
   
Examples: Biol for Biology
  Ann for Annals
  Abstr for Abstracts
   
Exceptions: Sci for Science
  Annu for Annual
     
4. Do not abbreviate a proper noun as the first word of a title.
   
Examples: Bangladesh J Microbiol
  Wilhelm Roux's Arch Dev Biol
   
But adjectival forms are abbreviated:
  Afr J Med Sci
  Am J Nephrol
   
5. Do not abbreviate one-word titles.
   
Examples: Virology  
  Nature  
  BioScience  
     
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