eXtyles uses a database of around 40,000 journal names during reference restructuring. This includes both currently active journals (estimates vary, but there are probably at least 25,000 active scholarly journals) and those that are no longer published or have changed names. This resource enables eXtyles to recognize both full journal names and abbreviations, including many non-standard abbreviations. However, occasionally, eXtyles may encounter a journal that it does not recognize.
Reasons eXtyles might fail to recognize a journal include:
- Journals that are genuinely new to eXtyles ;
- Misspelled journal names, acronyms, or abbreviations outside those already covered;
- Non-standard journal titles outside those handled by eXtyles (see below for more information);
- References to publications that eXtyles does not treat as journals, including some magazines, newspapers and book serials, but which superficially resemble journal references.
If one of your references returns a failure to identify the journal name, check for obvious spelling errors in the title or try spelling out an abbreviated journal name in full and then reprocess the reference.
Journal names missing from the eXtyles database can be sent to us.
Non-standard journal titles
eXtyles has a difficult time recognizing certain types of non-standard journal titles, particularly titles that contain years, such as J Appl Physiol (1985). The inclusion of years in journal titles makes it difficult for eXtyles to distinguish between the journal name and the publication year. Even when such titles are listed in our journal database, the parsing engine cannot unravel the pieces in the reference confidently enough to make the match. In most cases, eXtyles can identify the title without the year, and then correct it by inserting the missing year if it is listed in our database or in the linking databases (PubMed or CrossRef).