ISO 4 (Information and documentation – Rules for the abbreviation of title words and titles of publications) is an
international standard
international standard is a technical standard developed by one or more international standards organizations. International standards are available for consideration and use worldwide. The most prominent such organization is the International Or ...
which defines a uniform system for the abbreviation of
serial publication
In publishing and library and information science, the term serial is applied to materials "in any medium issued under the same title in a succession of discrete parts, usually numbered (or dated) and appearing at regular or irregular intervals ...
titles, i.e., titles of publications such as
scientific journals
In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research.
Content
Articles in scientific journals are mostly written by active scientists such as s ...
that are published in regular installments.
The
International Organization for Standardization
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Ar ...
(ISO) has appointed the
ISSN International Centre as the
registration authority
Registration authorities exist for many standards organizations, such as ANNA (Association of National Numbering Agencies for ISIN), the Object Management Group, W3C, IEEE and others. In general, registration authorities all perform a similar fun ...
for ISO 4. It maintains the ''List of Title Word Abbreviations'' (''LTWA''), which contains standard abbreviations for words commonly found in serial titles. , the standard's most recent update came in 1997, when its third edition was released.
A major use of ISO 4 is to abbreviate the names of scientific journals using the LTWA. For instance, under ISO 4 standards, the ''
Journal of Biological Chemistry
The ''Journal of Biological Chemistry'' (''JBC'') is a weekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1905., jbc.org Since 1925, it is published by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. It covers research in ...
'' is cited as ''J. Biol. Chem.'', and the ''
Journal of Polymer Science Part A
''Journal of Polymer Science'' is a peer-reviewed journal of polymer science currently published in multiple parts by John Wiley & Sons. It was originally established as the ''Journal of Polymer Science'' in 1946 by Interscience Publishers and the ...
'' should be cited as ''J. Polym. Sci. A'' (capitalization is not specified by the standard). The standard notes that "Full stops shall only be used to indicate an abbreviation. Full stops may be omitted from abbreviated words in applications that require limited use of punctuation" (section 4.6).
It was initially published in 1972 (ISO 4:1972), with a second edition published in 1984 (ISO 4:1984),
and the third edition in 1997 (ISO 4:1997).
See also
*
ISSN
An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication, such as a magazine. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSNs ...
*
CODEN
CODEN – according to ASTM standard E250 – is a six-character, alphanumeric bibliographic code that provides concise, unique and unambiguous identification of the titles of periodicals and non-serial publications from all subject areas.
CODE ...
References
External links
List of Title Word AbbreviationsText of the standard (third edition, 1997)
#00004
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