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
Gershon, D. (2002). Cell biology gets plugged in. Nature, 417(6892), 6.
A journal article with 2 authors
Myers, R. A., & Worm, B. (2003). Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities. Nature, 423(6937), 280–283.
A journal article with 3 authors
Sudhakar, Y. A., Verma, R. K., & Pawar, S. C. (2014). Type IV collagen α1-chain noncollagenous domain blocks MMP-2 activation both in-vitro and in-vivo. Scientific Reports, 4, 4136.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Makarova, T. L., Sundqvist, B., Höhne, R., Esquinazi, P., Kopelevich, Y., Scharff, P., Davydov, V. A., Kashevarova, L. S., & Rakhmanina, A. V. (2001). Magnetic carbon. Nature, 413(6857), 716–718.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Rim, C. T., & Mi, C. (2017). Wireless Power Transfer for Electric Vehicles and Mobile Devices. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An edited book
Litvinenko, V. (Ed.). (2016). XVIII International Coal Preparation Congress: 28 June—01 July 2016 Saint-Petersburg, Russia. Springer International Publishing.
A chapter in an edited book
Cauduro, A., Nicola, A. D., Fonio, C., Nuvoloni, A., & Ruspini, P. (2009). Innocent When You Dream Clients and Trafficked Women in Italy. In A. D. Nicola, A. Cauduro, M. Lombardi, & P. Ruspini (Eds.), Prostitution and Human Trafficking: Focus on Clients (pp. 31–66). Springer.

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
Davis, J. (2015, August 24). Celebrate the Spitzer Space Telescope’s 12th Anniversary With These Stunning Images. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/celebrate-spitzer-space-telescopes-12th-anniversary-these-stunning-images/

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. (1997). Core Competencies in Financial Management for Information Technology Personnel in the Federal Government (Exposure Draft) (CC–3). 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
Carman, S. B. (2013). Leadership style and church attendance: An ex post facto study of Churches of Christ in Texas [Doctoral dissertation]. Capella University.

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, July 21). Ties to Miami and to Cuba Run Deep in Marlins Bidder. New York Times, D1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Gershon, 2002).
This sentence cites two references (Gershon, 2002; Myers & Worm, 2003).

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

  • Two authors: (Myers & Worm, 2003)
  • Three authors: (Sudhakar et al., 2014)
  • 6 or more authors: (Makarova et al., 2001)

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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