Box 22Abbreviation rules for journal titles

• Abbreviate and capitalize significant words in a journal title and omit other words, such as articles, conjunctions, and prepositions. For example: of, the, at, in, and, L'.

  • The Journal of Bacteriology   becomes   J Bacteriol
  • Annali dell'Istituto Superiore di Sanita   becomes   Ann Ist Super Sanita

  • A list of the abbreviations for common English words used in journal titles is in Appendix A. Other sources for title-word abbreviations are:

    • The NLM Catalog, which includes an interface to search by journal title, and the complete active PubMed title list.
    • Appendix B for non-NLM sources
• Do not abbreviate journal titles that consist of a single word or titles written in a character-based language such as Chinese and Japanese.

  • Ophthalmology   remains   Ophthalmology
  • Nippon Hoshasen Gijutsu Gakkai Zasshi   remains   Nippon Hoshasen Gijutsu Gakkai Zasshi
• Do not include journal subtitles as part of the abbreviated title

  • Injury Prevention: Journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention   becomes   Inj Prev
• Omit any punctuation in a title

  • Journal of Neuro-Oncology   becomes   J Neurooncol
  • Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology, Oral Radiology, and Endodontics   becomes   Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol Endod
• Some bibliographies and online databases give a place of publication after a journal title, such as Clin Toxicol (Phila). This shows that two or more journal titles with the same name reside in a library collection or database; the name of the city where the journal is published distinguishes the various titles. The city is usually shown in abbreviated format following the same rules used for words in journal titles, such as Phila for Philadelphia in the example above. If you use a bibliography or database such as PubMed to verify your reference and a place name is included, you may keep it if you wish.
• See also Construction of National Library of Medicine Title Abbreviations