How to format your references using the Cognitive Psychology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Cognitive 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.
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
Smaglik, P. (2003). Moving targets. Nature, 423(6943), 1021.
A journal article with 2 authors
Cyranoski, D., & Chou, I.-H. (2004). Winds of change blow away the cobwebs on campus. Nature, 429(6988), 210–214.
A journal article with 3 authors
Mojzsis, S. J., Harrison, T. M., & Pidgeon, R. T. (2001). Oxygen-isotope evidence from ancient zircons for liquid water at the Earth’s surface 4,300 Myr ago. Nature, 409(6817), 178–181.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Turner, M., Golovko, V. B., Vaughan, O. P. H., Abdulkin, P., Berenguer-Murcia, A., Tikhov, M. S., Johnson, B. F. G., & Lambert, R. M. (2008). Selective oxidation with dioxygen by gold nanoparticle catalysts derived from 55-atom clusters. Nature, 454(7207), 981–983.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Remy, J.-G., & Letamendia, C. (2014). LTE Services. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
Pantelakis, S., & Rodopoulos, C. (Eds.). (2009). Engineering Against Fracture: Proceedings of the 1st Conference. Springer Netherlands.
A chapter in an edited book
Monahan, T. S. (2012). Microvascular Changes in the Diabetic Foot. In G. V. Shrikhande & J. F. McKinsey (Eds.), Diabetes and Peripheral Vascular Disease: Diagnosis and Management (pp. 53–62). Humana Press.

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 Psychology.

Blog post
Andrew, E. (2014, October 27). Watch The Antares Rocket Launch Tonight Live. IFLScience; IFLScience.

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. (1987). Federal Aviation Administration’s Acquisition of the Advanced Automation System (T-IMTEC-87-6). 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
Borisova-Kidder, A. (2006). Meta-Analytical Estimates of Values of Environmental Services Enhanced by Government Agricultural Conservation Programs [Doctoral dissertation]. Ohio State 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
Sisario, B. (2017, June 1). Another Failed Festival Puts Industry on Edge. New York Times, B1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Smaglik, 2003).
This sentence cites two references (Cyranoski & Chou, 2004; Smaglik, 2003).

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

  • Two authors: (Cyranoski & Chou, 2004)
  • Three authors: (Mojzsis et al., 2001)
  • 6 or more authors: (Turner et al., 2008)

About the journal

Full journal titleCognitive Psychology
AbbreviationCogn. Psychol.
ISSN (print)0010-0285
ScopeArtificial Intelligence
Developmental and Educational Psychology
Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology
Linguistics and Language

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