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
Hirsch, J.E., 2002. Superconductivity. The true colors of cuprates. Science 295, 2226–2227.
A journal article with 2 authors
Weimerskirch, H., Wilson, R.P., 2000. Oceanic respite for wandering albatrosses. Nature 406, 955–956.
A journal article with 3 authors
Hu, Y., Lee, C.C., Ribbe, M.W., 2011. Extending the carbon chain: hydrocarbon formation catalyzed by vanadium/molybdenum nitrogenases. Science 333, 753–755.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Meijers, R., Puettmann-Holgado, R., Skiniotis, G., Liu, J.-H., Walz, T., Wang, J.-H., Schmucker, D., 2007. Structural basis of Dscam isoform specificity. Nature 449, 487–491.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
McLean, D., 2012. Understanding Aerodynamics. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK.
An edited book
van Eemeren, F.H., 2014. Handbook of Argumentation Theory. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.
A chapter in an edited book
Gunasekara, A.S., Rubin, A.L., Goh, K.S., Spurlock, F.C., Tjeerdema, R.S., 2008. Environmental Fate and Toxicology of Carbaryl, in: Whitacre, D.M. (Ed.), Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology Vol 196, Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. Springer US, New York, NY, pp. 95–121.

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. The West Is On Fire – And The US Taxpayer Is Subsidizing It [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/environment/west-fire-and-us-taxpayer-subsidizing-it/ (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, 1974. Expenditures of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for Public Relations Activities (No. B-161939). 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
Havill, N.L., 2012. Therapeutic landscapes for birth: A research synthesis (Doctoral dissertation). University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC.

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
Wagner, J., 2017. Familia’s Surgery Has Mets Scrambling in the Bullpen. New York Times D2.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Hirsch, 2002).
This sentence cites two references (Hirsch, 2002; Weimerskirch and Wilson, 2000).

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

  • Two authors: (Weimerskirch and Wilson, 2000)
  • Three or more authors: (Meijers 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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