How to format your references using the Behavioral Sciences citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Behavioral Sciences. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Bosch, X. Radical Changes Urged for Spanish Universities. Nature 2000, 404, 425–426.

A journal article with 2 authors

Belcher, C.M.; McElwain, J.C. Limits for Combustion in Low O2 Redefine Paleoatmospheric Predictions for the Mesozoic. Science 2008, 321, 1197–1200.

A journal article with 3 authors

Samuelsson, A.; Towers, T.L.; Ravetch, J.V. Anti-Inflammatory Activity of IVIG Mediated through the Inhibitory Fc Receptor. Science 2001, 291, 484–486.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Burgess, S.A.; Walker, M.L.; Sakakibara, H.; Knight, P.J.; Oiwa, K. Dynein Structure and Power Stroke. Nature 2003, 421, 715–718.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Richter, D.H. Reading the Eighteenth-Century Novel; John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Chichester, UK, 2017; ISBN 9781118621097.

An edited book

Energy Storage and Release through the Solar Activity Cycle: Models Meet Radio Observations; Marqué, C., Nindos, A., Eds.; Springer: New York, NY, 2012; ISBN 9781461444022.

A chapter in an edited book

Pelekis, N.; Theodoridis, Y. Moving Object Database Engines. In Mobility Data Management and Exploration; Theodoridis, Y., Ed.; Springer: New York, NY, 2014; pp. 101–118 ISBN 9781493903917.

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 Behavioral Sciences.

Blog post

Andrew, D. DNA Reveals Aboriginal People Had A Long And Settled Connection To Country Available online: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/dna-reveals-aboriginal-people-had-a-long-and-settled-connection-to-country/ (accessed on 30 October 2018).

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 A Long-Term Plan Is Needed To Guide DOE and Multiprogram Laboratory Research and Development Activities; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1984;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Ireland, K.S. The Role Family Communication Patterns Play in Shaping People’s Responses and Perceived Outcomes to Boundary Turbulence via Privacy Breaches in Their Personal Relationships. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach: Long Beach, CA, 2017.

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

Kelly, M. THE 1992 CAMPAIGN: In Hindsight; Texas-Size Failure. New York Times 1992, 111.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [1].
This sentence cites two references [1,2].
This sentence cites four references [1–4].

About the journal

Full journal title	Behavioral Sciences
Abbreviation	Behav. Sci. (Basel)
ISSN (online)	2076-328X
Scope