Citation lets you use tables to include abbreviations for journals and publishers in your references. If you regularly write articles for journals requiring abbreviations, you will want to use this feature.

When the option for Journal Abbreviations or Publisher Abbreviations is checked in your Preferences dialog, Citation uses the journal abbreviations table for journal names in your citations. It works on a very simple principle: when a citation for a journal article is written, Citation looks for a match for the Journal name in the first column of the journal abbreviations table (jourabs.txt). When it locates a match, it replaces the full name of the journal in the record with an abbreviation when the citation is formatted.

Setting Preferences for abbreviations

With Citation open, click File, Preferences. The Preferences dialog will display. Check the option to use Journal abbreviations and / or Publisher abbreviations. Choose OK to close the Preferences Dialog box.

The abbreviation tables

Citation installs abbreviation tables for journals (JOURABS.TXT) and publishers (PUBABS.TXT) in your citation folder as text files that you can edit with your word processor. When you edit an abbreviation table, make certain you save it as Plain Text (Word) or Generic WP document (WordPerfect).

The structure of the abbreviation tables is simple: there are two columns. The first column is used to match the text in your datafile, and the second column contains the journal abbreviations to use in your citations.

The two columns are separated by a TAB.

Editing the abbreviation tables

1. Click Start, Programs, Citation 9, and then click on the Abbreviation table you want to edit. The Abbreviation table for journals or publishers will open in Notepad (a text editor).
   

   The publisher abbreviation table is pubabs.txt, the journal abbreviation table is jourabs.txt.

   Always enter abbreviations in the table with periods; you can set the options in Preferences for the abbreviation style without periods.

2. When you have customized the table for your needs, save the table and close the document.

Note: if journal names are currently in your datafile as abbreviations, and you need to generate citations with the full names of journals, you can edit the table file so that the first column contains abbreviations, and the second column contains the full name of the journal.

For text file lists of standard abbreviations for medical journals, physics, and other disciplines that you can download and use to customize your own abbreviation tables, visit our web site at www.citationonline.net.