How to format your references using the Current Opinion in Psychology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Current Opinion in 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:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Find the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX 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

[1]

B. Worm, ECOLOGY. A most unusual (super)predator, Science. 349 (2015) 784–785.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

F.J. Gómez, R.M. Waymouth, Polymer synthesis. Catalysts rise to the challenge, Science. 295 (2002) 635–636.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

G. King, J. Pan, M.E. Roberts, Political science. Reverse-engineering censorship in China: randomized experimentation and participant observation, Science. 345 (2014) 1251722.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

J. Wang, C.-Q. Feng, Z.-Q. Sun, S.-L. Chou, H.-K. Liu, J.-Z. Wang, In-situ one-step hydrothermal synthesis of a lead germanate-graphene composite as a novel anode material for lithium-ion batteries, Sci. Rep. 4 (2014) 7030.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

L.S. Etube, Fatigue and Fracture Mechanics of Offshore Structures, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2000.

An edited book

[1]

C. Berrou, ed., Codes and Turbo Codes, Springer, Paris, 2010.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

G.J. Kwiecien, Fallopian Tube Anastomosis, in: M.Z. Siemionow (Ed.), Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery: Experimental Models and Research Designs, Springer, London, 2015: pp. 39–43.

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 Current Opinion in Psychology.

Blog post

[1]

E. Andrew, Why It Matters That Student Participation In Maths And Science Is Declining, IFLScience. (2015). https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/why-it-matters-student-participation-maths-and-science-declining/ (accessed October 30, 2018).

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

[1]

Government Accountability Office, Commercial Space: FAA Should Examine How to Appropriately Regulate Space Support Vehicles, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2016.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

E.A. Xiao, Understanding Employment to Entrepreneurship Transitions among Women Working in the Tech Industry, Doctoral dissertation, Pepperdine University, 2017.

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

[1]

S. Kishkovsky, Russian Publisher Adds Its Own Slant, Writers Say, New York Times. (2015) A10.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [1].
This sentence cites two references [1,2].
This sentence cites four references [1–4].

About the journal

Full journal title	Current Opinion in Psychology
Abbreviation	Curr. Opin. Psychol.
ISSN (print)	2352-250X
Scope