This is kind of embarrassing, but I never figured out how to cite journal names in the bibliography, especially when to abbreviate and how. For example, do we write "Adv. in Math." or "Advances in Math."? Or is "Trans. of AMS" OK? So:



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> Is there any formal guideline on how to cite and abbreviate journals names in a math paper? 
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I googled and found one resources which says: follow Math Sci Net. But it is not very convenient, since I would have to go to Math Sci Net and search for such journal every time I need to cite it.


And while we are at it, what is the protocol on arxiv links? Do we keep them in the citation after the paper is published, since it is still the most accessible source? 


Thank you! 



How to cite math journals? 
Hailong, I would still suggest following MathSciNet, but you don't necessarily have to go there every time. Presumably the journals you cite come from a small finite set. This may be a pain at first, but you will get them all very soon.


Actually, I use BibTeX and so I have a growing database of papers. You can go to MathSciNet and ask it to display references in BibTeX format. Then you can copy and paste. After a while most papers you cite are already in your database, except recent ones, but those you can get when needed. It's pretty convenient and easy. You could also use John Palmieri's [bibweb](http://www.math.washington.edu/~palmieri/bibweb.php) script.


As for the arXiv links, I am not sure that you need to keep them there. If the author and title are the same, which is usually the case, then it is fairly easy to find on arxiv, so if someone does not have access to the published version, then they can easily find it on arXiv.org. If you want to be thorough you can include the doi information and/or the MR number. 


