How to format your references using the Learning and Motivation citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Learning and Motivation. 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

Collinge, J. (2010). Medicine. Prion strain mutation and selection. Science (New York, N.Y.), 328(5982), 1111–1112.

A journal article with 2 authors

O’Sullivan, D., & Pearce, E. L. (2015). Immunology. Expanding the role of metabolism in T cells. Science (New York, N.Y.), 348(6238), 976–977.

A journal article with 3 authors

Dubilier, N., McFall-Ngai, M., & Zhao, L. (2015). Microbiology: Create a global microbiome effort. Nature, 526(7575), 631–634.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Passafaro, M., Nakagawa, T., Sala, C., & Sheng, M. (2003). Induction of dendritic spines by an extracellular domain of AMPA receptor subunit GluR2. Nature, 424(6949), 677–681.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Geisser, S. (2005). Modes of Parametric Statistical Inference: Geisser/Modes of Parametric Statistical Inference. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Sugiyama, Y., & Steffansen, B. (Eds.). (2013). Transporters in Drug Development: Discovery, Optimization, Clinical Study and Regulation (Vol. 7). Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Saravanakumar, G., & Kim, W. J. (2014). Stimuli-Responsive Polymeric Nanocarriers as Promising Drug and Gene Delivery Systems. In A. Prokop, Y. Iwasaki, & A. Harada (Eds.), Intracellular Delivery II: Fundamentals and Applications (pp. 55–91). Springer Netherlands.

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 Learning and Motivation.

Blog post

Andrews, R. (2016, October 28). Hidden Layers Have Been Found In The Tomb Of Jesus Christ. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/hidden-layers-found-tomb-jesus-christ/

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. (2005). Health Care: Continued Leadership Needed to Define and Implement Information Technology Standards (GAO-05-1054T). 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

Zinda, E. S. (2017). American Cerberus: Pit Bulls and Psyche in the United States [Doctoral dissertation]. Pacifica Graduate Institute.

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

Ryerson, J. (2016, September 23). The Truth Is Out There. New York Times, BR31.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Collinge, 2010).
This sentence cites two references (Collinge, 2010; O’Sullivan & Pearce, 2015).

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

Two authors: (O’Sullivan & Pearce, 2015)
Three authors: (Dubilier et al., 2015)
6 or more authors: (Passafaro et al., 2003)

About the journal

Full journal title	Learning and Motivation
Abbreviation	Learn. Motiv.
ISSN (print)	0023-9690
Scope	Developmental and Educational Psychology Experimental and Cognitive Psychology Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology Education Health(social science)