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]

R.M. Alexander, Biophysics. Antennae as gyroscopes, Science. 315 (2007) 771–772.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

P.V. Kirch, W.D. Sharp, Coral 230Th dating of the imposition of a ritual control hierarchy in precontact Hawaii, Science. 307 (2005) 102–104.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

J. Perlo, F. Casanova, B. Blümich, Ex situ NMR in highly homogeneous fields: 1H spectroscopy, Science. 315 (2007) 1110–1112.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

X. Xin, Y. Wan, W. Wang, G. Yin, E.S. McLamore, X. Lu, A real-time, non-invasive, micro-optrode technique for detecting seed viability by using oxygen influx, Sci. Rep. 3 (2013) 3057.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

C.T. Rim, C. Mi, Wireless Power Transfer for Electric Vehicles and Mobile Devices, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2017.

An edited book

[1]

M. Jarnicki, Continuous Nowhere Differentiable Functions: The Monsters of Analysis, 1st ed. 2015, Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

F.-L. Zhang, J. Zhu, An Experimental Study of Drilling Small and Deep Blind Holes with an Abrasive Water Jet, in: E. Qi, J. Shen, R. Dou (Eds.), Proceedings of 20th International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management: Theory and Apply of Industrial Engineering, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2013: pp. 33–40.

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]

R. Andrews, Human Poop Has Snuck Into Some Coca-Cola Cans, IFLScience. (2017).

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, Space Acquisitions: Committing Prematurely to the Transformational Satellite Program Elevates Risks for Poor Cost, Schedule, and Performance Outcomes, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2003.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

E. Dimick, A Comparative Study on Pheromone Communication between Schizophyllum species, Doctoral dissertation, Southern Illinois University, 2015.

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]

M.W. Walsh, The Burden Of Pensions On States, New York Times. (2011) B1.

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

Research and Writing Guides