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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Experimental Child 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	Download the output style file
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

Holmgren, A. (2008). Biochemistry. SNO removal. Science (New York, N.Y.), 320(5879), 1019–1020.

A journal article with 2 authors

Lionetti, D., & Agapie, T. (2014). Inorganic chemistry: How calcium affects oxygen formation. Nature, 513(7519), 495–496.

A journal article with 3 authors

Kaminski, J., Call, J., & Fischer, J. (2004). Word learning in a domestic dog: evidence for “fast mapping.” Science (New York, N.Y.), 304(5677), 1682–1683.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Li, J., Stein, D., McMullan, C., Branton, D., Aziz, M. J., & Golovchenko, J. A. (2001). Ion-beam sculpting at nanometre length scales. Nature, 412(6843), 166–169.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Taylor, T. A. (2010). Guide to LEED® 2009 Estimating and Preconstruction Strategies. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

McLaurin, B. T. (2012). Reconstructing Human-Landscape Interactions - Volume 1: Interpreting Desert and Fluvial Environments (A. C. Elliott & N. Torres, Eds.). Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Nkunzimana, T., Custodio, E., Pérez-Hoyos, A., & Kayitakire, F. (2016). Assessing MDG Achievements Through Under-5 Child Stunting in the East African Community: Some Insights from Urban Versus Rural Areas in Burundi and Rwanda Using DHS2010. In A. Heshmati (Ed.), Poverty and Well-Being in East Africa: A Multi-faceted Economic Approach (pp. 61–86). Springer International Publishing.

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 Experimental Child Psychology.

Blog post

Carpineti, A. (2017, February 8). Nuclear Glass Helps Test How The Moon Formed. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/physics/nuclear-glass-helps-test-how-the-moon-formed/

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. (1991). Federal Research: Super Collider Estimates and Germany’s Industrially Produced Magnets (RCED-91-94FS). 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

Williams, K. (2016). From Cribs to Crayons: A Study on the Use of Universal Curriculum and Assessment of Preschool Students and Teachers in the Classroom [Doctoral dissertation]. University of Louisiana.

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

Wagner, J. (2017, October 21). Role Players Define the Dodgers, and Hernandez Has a Leading Part. New York Times, D3.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Holmgren, 2008).
This sentence cites two references (Holmgren, 2008; Lionetti & Agapie, 2014).

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

Two authors: (Lionetti & Agapie, 2014)
Three authors: (Kaminski et al., 2004)
6 or more authors: (Li et al., 2001)

About the journal

Full journal title	Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
Abbreviation	J. Exp. Child Psychol.
ISSN (print)	0022-0965
Scope	Developmental and Educational Psychology Experimental and Cognitive Psychology