How to format your references using the Cognitive Development citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Cognitive Development. 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
Markovic, N. (2015). SUPERCONDUCTIVITY. Randomness rules. Science (New York, N.Y.), 350(6260), 509.
A journal article with 2 authors
Wu-Baer, F., & Baer, R. (2001). Effect of DNA damage on a BRCA1 complex. Nature, 414(6859), 36.
A journal article with 3 authors
Bandfield, J. L., Glotch, T. D., & Christensen, P. R. (2003). Spectroscopic identification of carbonate minerals in the martian dust. Science (New York, N.Y.), 301(5636), 1084–1087.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Gong, Y., Wei, Z., Wang, J., Zhang, P., Li, H., & Wang, Y. (2014). Design and fabrication of hierarchically porous carbon with a template-free method. Scientific Reports, 4, 6349.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Bhaduri, S., & Mukesh, D. (2014). Homogeneous Catalysis. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
Olek, M. J. (Ed.). (2005). Multiple Sclerosis: Etiology, Diagnosis, and New Treatment Strategies. Humana Press.
A chapter in an edited book
Hartlep, N. D., & Scott, D. P. (2016). Middle School. In D. P. Scott (Ed.), Asian/American Curricular Epistemicide: From Being Excluded to Becoming a Model Minority (pp. 55–68). SensePublishers.

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 Cognitive Development.

Blog post
Hale, T. (2017, January 10). California’s Famous Giant Sequoia “Tunnel Tree” Falls From Heavy Rain. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/californias-famous-giant-sequoia-tunnel-tree-falls-from-heavy-rain/

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). Youth with Autism: Roundtable Views of Services Needed During the Transition into Adulthood (GAO-17-109). 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
McConnell, K. F. (2008). Inventing pluralistic education: Compulsory schooling as technique of democratic deliberation [Doctoral dissertation]. Indiana 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, August 16). ‘Trade’ Ensures Duda Can’t Shake That Pesky Instagram Account. New York Times, B8.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Markovic, 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Markovic, 2015; Wu-Baer & Baer, 2001).

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

  • Two authors: (Wu-Baer & Baer, 2001)
  • Three authors: (Bandfield et al., 2003)
  • 6 or more authors: (Gong et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal titleCognitive Development
AbbreviationCogn. Dev.
ISSN (print)0885-2014
ScopeDevelopmental and Educational Psychology
Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

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