9 | How to Properly Abbreviate a Journal Name

Best Practices

The full names of journals are often abbreviated in the references sections of manuscripts, which reduces the printing costs for the publisher and saves time for authors without access to reference management software. Authors also commonly use journal name abbreviations in grant proposals too. When abbreviating the name of a journal, don’t just guess the shortened form. Instead, use an established database to look up the approved journal abbreviation.

The four journal abbreviation databases listed below are the ones most often used within the author guidelines of science journals. If no database is specified in the author guidelines, feel free to use the one you like the best.

• CASSI.^[1] The Chemical Abstract Service (CAS), a division of the American Chemical Society, maintains CASSI (CAS Source Index), a comprehensive bibliographic database that contains journal titles, approved abbreviations, and other useful information (e.g., ISBN, ISSN). This database can be searched by using the full journal title or abbreviated name and is quick to use.
• LTWA.^[2] The List of Title Word Abbreviations (LTWA) contains all standard title word abbreviations approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Use the word search tab to look up abbreviations for a word. For example, type in “pharm” to look up the various abbreviations for words containing “pharm” such as pharmacology or pharmacological.
• NLM Catalog.^[3] The National Library of Medicine (NLM) Catalog contains bibliographic data on over 1.4 million journals, books, and other resources, including the journals in PubMed. Search this database by using the full journal title; after hitting the search button, select the “Journals currently indexed in MEDLINE” option in the left-hand column to narrow down the search results.
• Index Medicus.^[4][5] This bibliographic database deserves an honorable mention because of its long history dating back to 1879 and its occasional inclusion in journal author instructions. While Index Medicus is limited to journals in biomedicine and is thus not comprehensive, the database can be useful for looking up commonly referenced medical journals, particularly when the abbreviation cannot be located quickly elsewhere. Note, however, that printing of this database ended in 2004 and the content is now a part of MEDLINE, which can be accessed through the NLM Catalog.

Bookmark these databases in a web browser so that each is easy to find.

Lastly, please be aware that if a particular journal’s name cannot be found in one of the above databases, journal editors prefer authors include the full title so that in-house staff can choose the appropriate abbreviation. No abbreviation is necessary if the journal’s name is a single word.