How to format your references using the Early Childhood Research Quarterly citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Early Childhood Research Quarterly. 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
Dolan, L. (2007). Plant science. SCARECROWs at the border. Science (New York, N.Y.), 316(5823), 377–378.
A journal article with 2 authors
Yang, M., & Liu, W.-M. (2014). The d-p band-inversion topological insulator in bismuth-based skutterudites. Scientific Reports, 4, 5131.
A journal article with 3 authors
Ghosh, P., Garzione, C. N., & Eiler, J. M. (2006). Rapid uplift of the Altiplano revealed through 13C-18O bonds in paleosol carbonates. Science (New York, N.Y.), 311(5760), 511–515.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Hoffmeister, K. M., Josefsson, E. C., Isaac, N. A., Clausen, H., Hartwig, J. H., & Stossel, T. P. (2003). Glycosylation restores survival of chilled blood platelets. Science (New York, N.Y.), 301(5639), 1531–1534.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Wallgren, A., & Wallgren, B. (2014). Register-Based Statistics. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An edited book
Sumner, J. (Ed.). (2016). Learning, Food, and Sustainability: Sites for Resistance and Change. Palgrave Macmillan US.
A chapter in an edited book
Cho, H.-S., Han, Q.-F., Kim, H.-G., & Kim, J. Y. (2016). Receiver-Based Adaptive Signal Control for Enhancing VoIP Speech Quality. In K. J. Kim, N. Wattanapongsakorn, & N. Joukov (Eds.), Mobile and Wireless Technologies 2016 (pp. 35–39). 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 Early Childhood Research Quarterly.

Blog post
Andrew, E. (2015, August 5). Massive New Study Suggests The Pill Has Prevented 200,000 Cases of Womb Cancer. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/massive-new-study-suggests-pill-prevented-200000-cases-womb-cancer/

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. (2002). Social Security Administration: Agency Must Position Itself Now to Meet Profound Challenges (GAO-02-289T). 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
Ryan, B. A. (2012). Computer-Based Versus Paper-Pencil Modes of Administration United States Government End of Course Exams: Student Cumulative Grade Point Averages as Predictors of Success [Doctoral dissertation]. Lindenwood 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
Yablonsky, L. (2010, February 14). Power Nap. New York Times, ST3.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Dolan, 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Dolan, 2007; Yang & Liu, 2014).

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

  • Two authors: (Yang & Liu, 2014)
  • Three authors: (Ghosh et al., 2006)
  • 6 or more authors: (Hoffmeister et al., 2003)

About the journal

Full journal titleEarly Childhood Research Quarterly
AbbreviationEarly Child. Res. Q.
ISSN (print)0885-2006
ScopeDevelopmental and Educational Psychology
Education
Sociology and Political Science

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