How to format your references using the Behavioural Processes citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Behavioural Processes. 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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
Parak, F., 2011. Rudolf L. Mössbauer (1929-2011). Nature 478, 325.
A journal article with 2 authors
Yi, X., Liu, C., 2014. Retention of cotyledons is crucial for resprouting of clipped oak seedlings. Sci. Rep. 4, 5145.
A journal article with 3 authors
Paradise, J., Andrews, L., Holbrook, T., 2005. Intellectual property. Patents on human genes: an analysis of scope and claims. Science 307, 1566–1567.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Hauert, C., Traulsen, A., Brandt, H., Nowak, M.A., Sigmund, K., 2007. Via freedom to coercion: the emergence of costly punishment. Science 316, 1905–1907.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Fredriksson, H., Åkerlind, U., 2012. Solidification and Crystallization Processing in Metals and Alloys. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK.
An edited book
Nishikawa, K., Maruani, J., Brändas, E.J., Delgado-Barrio, G., Piecuch, P. (Eds.), 2012. Quantum Systems in Chemistry and Physics: Progress in Methods and Applications, Progress in Theoretical Chemistry and Physics. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.
A chapter in an edited book
AL-Hussaini, E.K., Ahsanullah, M., 2015. Family of Exponentiated Burr Type XII Distributions, in: Ahsanullah, M. (Ed.), Exponentiated Distributions, Atlantis Studies in Probability and Statistics. Atlantis Press, Paris, pp. 103–122.

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 Behavioural Processes.

Blog post
Andrew, E., 2015. Health Check: Can Your Brain Be ‘Full’? [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/brain/health-check-can-your-brain-be-full/ (accessed 10.30.18).

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, 2016. Federal Research Grants: Opportunities Remain for Agencies to Streamline Administrative Requirements (No. GAO-16-573). U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
Daum, M.A., 2012. Busy Fingers, Wordless Thoughts: Entering the Knot of Compulsive Hair Twisting (Doctoral dissertation). Pacifica Graduate Institute, Carpinteria, CA.

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
Koblin, J., 2016. Pauley Is Back — Again. New York Times B1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Parak, 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Parak, 2011; Yi and Liu, 2014).

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

  • Two authors: (Yi and Liu, 2014)
  • Three or more authors: (Hauert et al., 2007)

About the journal

Full journal titleBehavioural Processes
AbbreviationBehav. Processes
ISSN (print)0376-6357
ScopeAnimal Science and Zoology
General Medicine
Behavioral Neuroscience

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