How to format your references using the Journal of Applied Psychology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Applied 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
McSwain, M. V. (2014). Astrophysics: Black hole found orbiting a fast rotator. Nature, 505(7483), 296–297.
A journal article with 2 authors
Feldmann, M., & Steinman, L. (2005). Design of effective immunotherapy for human autoimmunity. Nature, 435(7042), 612–619.
A journal article with 3 authors
Hoehler, T. M., Bebout, B. M., & Des Marais, D. J. (2001). The role of microbial mats in the production of reduced gases on the early Earth. Nature, 412(6844), 324–327.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Voloshina, E. N., Fertitta, E., Garhofer, A., Mittendorfer, F., Fonin, M., Thissen, A., & Dedkov, Y. S. (2013). Electronic structure and imaging contrast of graphene moiré on metals. Scientific Reports, 3, 1072.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Blackford, R. (2012). Freedom of Religion and the Secular State. Wiley-Blackwell.
An edited book
Pawankar, R., Holgate, S. T., & Rosenwasser, L. J. (Eds.). (2010). Allergy Frontiers: Future Perspectives (Vol. 6). Springer Japan.
A chapter in an edited book
Eddie Ng, Y. K., & Liu, N. (2007). Parametric Study of Greitzer’s Instability Flow Model Through Compressor System Using Taguchi Method. In N. Liu (Ed.), Compressor Instability with Integral Methods (pp. 107–129). 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 Journal of Applied Psychology.

Blog post
Andrews, R. (2017, May 31). Bacteria Are Evolving To Eat The Plastic We Dump Into The Oceans. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/bacteria-evolving-eat-plastic-dump-into-oceans/

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). Aviation Safety: Procedures for Registering and Certifying Air Carriers (RCED-87-115FS). 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
McClinton, B. E. (2010). Preparing for the third age: A retirement planning course outline for lifelong learning programs [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
Vecsey, G. (2011, November 11). Paterno at the End: Far From the Coach We Thought We Knew. New York Times, B18.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (McSwain, 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Feldmann & Steinman, 2005; McSwain, 2014).

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

  • Two authors: (Feldmann & Steinman, 2005)
  • Three authors: (Hoehler et al., 2001)
  • 6 or more authors: (Voloshina et al., 2013)

About the journal

Full journal titleJournal of Applied Psychology
AbbreviationJ. Appl. Psychol.
ISSN (print)0021-9010
ISSN (online)1939-1854
ScopeApplied Psychology

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