How to format your references using the British Journal of Developmental Psychology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for British Journal of Developmental Psychology. 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.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
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
Robock, A. (2011). Nuclear winter is a real and present danger. Nature, 473(7347), 275–276.
A journal article with 2 authors
Du, L., & Poovaiah, B. W. (2005). Ca2+/calmodulin is critical for brassinosteroid biosynthesis and plant growth. Nature, 437(7059), 741–745.
A journal article with 3 authors
Burslem, D. F., Garwood, N. C., & Thomas, S. C. (2001). Ecology. Tropical forest diversity--the plot thickens. Science (New York, N.Y.), 291(5504), 606–607.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Sharifi, S., Daghighi, S., Motazacker, M. M., Badlou, B., Sanjabi, B., Akbarkhanzadeh, A., Rowshani, A. T., Laurent, S., Peppelenbosch, M. P., & Rezaee, F. (2013). Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles alter expression of obesity and T2D-associated risk genes in human adipocytes. Scientific Reports, 3, 2173.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Maidl, B., Herrenknecht, M., Maidl, U., & Wehrmeyer, G. (2012). Mechanised Shield Tunnelling. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.
An edited book
Liong, M.-T. (Ed.). (2015). Beneficial Microorganisms in Food and Nutraceuticals (1st ed. 2015, Vol. 27). Springer International Publishing.
A chapter in an edited book
Levin, B. W., & Nosov, M. A. (2016). The Physics of Tsunami Formation by Sources of Nonseismic Origin. In M. Nosov (Ed.), Physics of Tsunamis (pp. 263–309). Springer International Publishing.

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 British Journal of Developmental Psychology.

Blog post
O`Callaghan, J. (2017, February 6). Our Galaxy Might Have Thousands Of Highly Magnetized Stars At Its Center. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/our-galaxy-might-have-thousands-of-highly-magnetized-stars-at-its-center/

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. (1992). Motor Vehicle Regulations: Regulatory Cost Estimates Could Be Improved (RCED-92-110). 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
Nolan, S. A. (2010). Ecopoetry and ecocentrism: The poetics of Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams [Doctoral dissertation]. California State University, Long Beach.

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
Otis, J. (2017, October 18). Playing by Rules After Breaking Them for Years. New York Times, A25.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Robock, 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Du & Poovaiah, 2005; Robock, 2011).

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

  • Two authors: (Du & Poovaiah, 2005)
  • Three authors: (Burslem et al., 2001)
  • 6 or more authors: (Sharifi et al., 2013)

About the journal

Full journal titleBritish Journal of Developmental Psychology
AbbreviationBr. J. Dev. Psychol.
ISSN (print)0261-510X
ISSN (online)2044-835X
ScopeDevelopmental Neuroscience
Developmental and Educational Psychology

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