How to format your references using the Acta Psychologica citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Acta Psychologica. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Download the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

Bilbe, G. (2015). Infectious diseases. Overcoming neglect of kinetoplastid diseases. Science (New York, N.Y.), 348(6238), 974–976.

A journal article with 2 authors

Campbell, P., & Grayson, M. (2014). Assessing science. Nature, 511(7510), S49.

A journal article with 3 authors

Vogelstein, B., Alberts, B., & Shine, K. (2002). Genetics. Please don’t call it cloning! Science (New York, N.Y.), 295(5558), 1237.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Lahdenperä, M., Lummaa, V., Helle, S., Tremblay, M., & Russell, A. F. (2004). Fitness benefits of prolonged post-reproductive lifespan in women. Nature, 428(6979), 178–181.

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

Bonneau, D., Fatu, A., & Souchet, D. (2014). Mixed Lubrication in Hydrodynamic Bearings. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Heams, T., Huneman, P., Lecointre, G., & Silberstein, M. (Eds.). (2015). Handbook of Evolutionary Thinking in the Sciences. Springer Netherlands.

A chapter in an edited book

Jacob, C., Steil, S., & Bergmann, K. (2006). The Swarming Body: Simulating the Decentralized Defenses of Immunity. In H. Bersini & J. Carneiro (Eds.), Artificial Immune Systems: 5th International Conference, ICARIS 2006, Oeiras, Portugal, September 4-6, 2006. Proceedings (pp. 52–65). Springer.

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for Acta Psychologica.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2015, October 20). Anxious Conservative Or Easygoing Rebel? Busting The Birth-Order Myths. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/anxious-conservative-or-easygoing-rebel-busting-birth-order-myths/

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

Government Accountability Office. (2005). Transportation Services: Better Dissemination and Oversight of DOT’s Guidance Could Lead to Improved Access for Limited English-Proficient Populations (GAO-06-52). U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Humphreys, B. P. (2013). The Role of Developmental Screening Practices in Early Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorders: An Analysis of All-Payer Claims Data in New Hampshire [Doctoral dissertation]. University of North Carolina.

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

Baker, P., & Gordon, M. R. (2013, August 30). Kerry Becomes Chief Advocate For U.S. Attack. New York Times, A1.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Bilbe, 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Bilbe, 2015; Campbell & Grayson, 2014).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Campbell & Grayson, 2014)
Three authors: (Vogelstein et al., 2002)
6 or more authors: (Lahdenperä et al., 2004)

About the journal

Full journal title	Acta Psychologica
Abbreviation	Acta Psychol. (Amst.)
ISSN (print)	0001-6918
Scope	Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous) General Medicine Developmental and Educational Psychology Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

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