How to format your references using the Developmental Psychology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Developmental 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
Widder, E. A. (2010). Bioluminescence in the ocean: origins of biological, chemical, and ecological diversity. Science (New York, N.Y.), 328(5979), 704–708.
A journal article with 2 authors
Macpherson, A. J., & Uhr, T. (2004). Induction of protective IgA by intestinal dendritic cells carrying commensal bacteria. Science (New York, N.Y.), 303(5664), 1662–1665.
A journal article with 3 authors
Jeffrey, J. L., Terrett, J. A., & MacMillan, D. W. C. (2015). O-H hydrogen bonding promotes H-atom transfer from α C-H bonds for C-alkylation of alcohols. Science (New York, N.Y.), 349(6255), 1532–1536.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Clubb, R., Rowcliffe, M., Lee, P., Mar, K. U., Moss, C., & Mason, G. J. (2008). Compromised survivorship in zoo elephants. Science (New York, N.Y.), 322(5908), 1649.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Bottjer, D. J. (2016). Paleoecology. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An edited book
Wright, K. W., Spiegel, P. H., & Thompson, L. S. (Eds.). (2006). Handbook of Pediatric Eye and Systemic Disease. Springer.
A chapter in an edited book
Plöger, P. G., Pervölz, K., Mies, C., Eyerich, P., Brenner, M., & Nebel, B. (2012). Component Based Architecture for an Intelligent Mobile Manipulator. In E. Prassler, M. Zöllner, R. Bischoff, W. Burgard, R. Haschke, M. Hägele, G. Lawitzky, B. Nebel, P. Plöger, & U. Reiser (Eds.), Towards Service Robots for Everyday Environments: Recent Advances in Designing Service Robots for Complex Tasks in Everyday Environments (pp. 19–42). 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 Developmental Psychology.

Blog post
Hamilton, K. (2016, May 8). Can You Solve This Math Problem That Went Viral In Japan? 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. (2000). Information Technology: Update on VA Actions to Implement Critical Reforms (T-AIMD-00-74). 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
Glover, D. (2010). Reconciling the doctrine of original sin with principles of moral responsibility [Doctoral dissertation]. California State University, Long Beach.

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
Sophia Kishkovsky; Compiled by. (2006, January 16). Arts, Briefly; Home-Grown Films Are Booming in Russia. New York Times, E2.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Widder, 2010).
This sentence cites two references (Macpherson & Uhr, 2004; Widder, 2010).

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

  • Two authors: (Macpherson & Uhr, 2004)
  • Three authors: (Jeffrey et al., 2015)
  • 6 or more authors: (Clubb et al., 2008)

About the journal

Full journal titleDevelopmental Psychology
AbbreviationDev. Psychol.
ISSN (print)0012-1649
ISSN (online)1939-0599
ScopeDevelopmental and Educational Psychology
Demography
Life-span and Life-course Studies

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