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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for British Journal of Educational 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
Gerlt, J. A. (2007). Obituary: Frank H. Westheimer (1912-2007). Nature, 447(7144), 543.
A journal article with 2 authors
Wright, C. W., & Duckett, C. S. (2009). The aryl hydrocarbon nuclear translocator alters CD30-mediated NF-kappaB-dependent transcription. Science (New York, N.Y.), 323(5911), 251–255.
A journal article with 3 authors
Khatiwala, S., Primeau, F., & Hall, T. (2009). Reconstruction of the history of anthropogenic CO(2) concentrations in the ocean. Nature, 462(7271), 346–349.
A journal article with 21 or more authors
Tom, S. M., Fox, C. R., Trepel, C., & Poldrack, R. A. (2007). The neural basis of loss aversion in decision-making under risk. Science (New York, N.Y.), 315(5811), 515–518.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Dasgupta, A. (2012). Resolving Erroneous Reports in Toxicology and Therapeutic Drug Monitoring. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
Ohtsu, M., & Yatsui, T. (Eds.). (2015). Progress in Nanophotonics 3. Springer International Publishing.
A chapter in an edited book
Yeshurun, R. (2013). Middle Paleolithic Prey Choice Inferred from a Natural Pitfall Trap: Rantis Cave, Israel. In J. L. Clark & J. D. Speth (Eds.), Zooarchaeology and Modern Human Origins: Human Hunting Behavior during the Later Pleistocene (pp. 45–58). Springer Netherlands.

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 Educational Psychology.

Blog post
Andrew, E. (2015, July 24). Pulsar Knocks Out Its Companion Star. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/pulsar-knocks-out-its-companion-star/

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. (1979). GAO’s Need for an Interim Management Data System (MDS) (B-161744). 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
Lee, M. (2009). Utilizing the Index of Learning Styles (ILS) in a technology-based publishing program [Doctoral dissertation]. University of Phoenix.

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
Kenigsberg, B. (2017, January 5). Film Series. New York Times, C32.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Gerlt, 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Gerlt, 2007; Wright & Duckett, 2009).

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

  • Two authors: (Wright & Duckett, 2009)
  • Three or more authors: (Tom et al., 2007)

About the journal

Full journal titleBritish Journal of Educational Psychology
AbbreviationBr. J. Educ. Psychol.
ISSN (print)0007-0998
ISSN (online)2044-8279
ScopeDevelopmental and Educational Psychology
Education

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