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:

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
Clarke, J. (2013). Paleontology. Feathers before flight. Science (New York, N.Y.), 340(6133), 690–692.
A journal article with 2 authors
Pilkey, O. H., & Cooper, J. A. G. (2004). Climate. Society and sea level rise. Science (New York, N.Y.), 303(5665), 1781–1782.
A journal article with 3 authors
Gehring, M., Bubb, K. L., & Henikoff, S. (2009). Extensive demethylation of repetitive elements during seed development underlies gene imprinting. Science (New York, N.Y.), 324(5933), 1447–1451.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Wong, J., Krisch, M., Farber, D. L., Occelli, F., Schwartz, A. J., Chiang, T.-C., Wall, M., Boro, C., & Xu, R. (2003). Phonon dispersions of fcc delta-plutonium-gallium by inelastic x-ray scattering. Science (New York, N.Y.), 301(5636), 1078–1080.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Lader, E. W. (2013). Field Guide to the Arrhythmias. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
An edited book
Jaiani, G., & Podio-Guidugli, P. (Eds.). (2008). IUTAM Symposium on Relations of Shell Plate Beam and 3D Models: Proceedings of the IUTAM Symposium on the Relations of Shell, Plate, Beam, and 3D Models, Dedicated to the Centenary of Ilia Vekua’s Birth, held in Tbilisi, Georgia, April 23-27, 2007 (Vol. 9). Springer Netherlands.
A chapter in an edited book
Lakshmibai, V., & Brown, J. (2015). Gröbner Bases. In J. Brown (Ed.), The Grassmannian Variety: Geometric and Representation-Theoretic Aspects (pp. 39–48). 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 Experimental Child Psychology.

Blog post
Andrew, D. (2015, August 29). Watch A Red-Hot Ball Of Nickel Melt A Bowl Of Jello From The Inside Out. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/watch-boiling-hot-nickel-ball-melt-bowl-jello-inside-out/

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). Desktop Outsourcing: Positive Results Reported, but Analyses Could Be Strengthened (GAO-02-329). 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
Swartz, H. (2017). The Multitude Speaks in Style: An Analysis of Vernacular Agency through Images of Ruth Bader Ginsburg [Doctoral dissertation]. Florida Atlantic 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
Schwirtz, M., & Rashbaum, W. K. (2017, May 12). Departing Correction Chief: ‘They Just Want to Hammer Somebody Forever.’ New York Times, A19.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Clarke, 2013).
This sentence cites two references (Clarke, 2013; Pilkey & Cooper, 2004).

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

  • Two authors: (Pilkey & Cooper, 2004)
  • Three authors: (Gehring et al., 2009)
  • 6 or more authors: (Wong et al., 2003)

About the journal

Full journal titleJournal of Experimental Child Psychology
AbbreviationJ. Exp. Child Psychol.
ISSN (print)0022-0965
ScopeDevelopmental and Educational Psychology
Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Other styles