How to format your references using the Methodology: European Journal of Research Methods for the Behavioral and Social Sciences citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Methodology: European Journal of Research Methods for the Behavioral and Social Sciences. 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.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
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
Abbott, A. (2003). Anthropologists cast doubt on human DNA evidence. Nature, 423(6939), 468.
A journal article with 2 authors
Magnus, D., & Cho, M. K. (2005). Ethics. Issues in oocyte donation for stem cell research. Science (New York, N.Y.), 308(5729), 1747–1748.
A journal article with 3 authors
Alexander, R. B., Smith, R. A., & Schwarz, G. E. (2000). Effect of stream channel size on the delivery of nitrogen to the Gulf of Mexico. Nature, 403(6771), 758–761.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Jackson, M. G., Hart, S. R., Koppers, A. A. P., Staudigel, H., Konter, J., Blusztajn, J., Kurz, M., & Russell, J. A. (2007). The return of subducted continental crust in Samoan lavas. Nature, 448(7154), 684–687.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Luther, G. W., III. (2016). Inorganic Chemistry for Geochemistry and Environmental Sciences. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An edited book
Suri, J. S., Wilson, D. L., & Laxminarayan, S. (Eds.). (2005). Handbook of Biomedical Image Analysis: Volume I: Segmentation Models Part A. Springer US.
A chapter in an edited book
Minghetti, P., Santimaria, M., & D’Arpino, A. (2013). Classificazione dei radiofarmaci. In G. Lucignani (Ed.), Sperimentazione e registrazione dei radiofarmaci: Normative e procedure (pp. 39–46). 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 Methodology: European Journal of Research Methods for the Behavioral and Social Sciences.

Blog post
Davis, J. (2015, August 24). Celebrate the Spitzer Space Telescope’s 12th Anniversary With These Stunning Images. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/celebrate-spitzer-space-telescopes-12th-anniversary-these-stunning-images/

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). Attack Warning: ADP and Communication Modernization Programs for Warning and Assessment (IMTEC-87-23FS). 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
Wead, M. O. (2009). Fear and Doubt [Doctoral dissertation]. University of Maryland, College Park.

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
Koblin, J., & Grynbaum, M. M. (2017, January 4). An Anchor Becomes the News. New York Times, B1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Abbott, 2003).
This sentence cites two references (Abbott, 2003; Magnus & Cho, 2005).

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

  • Two authors: (Magnus & Cho, 2005)
  • Three authors: (Alexander et al., 2000)
  • 6 or more authors: (Jackson et al., 2007)

About the journal

Full journal titleMethodology: European Journal of Research Methods for the Behavioral and Social Sciences
AbbreviationMethodology (Gott.)
ISSN (print)1614-1881
ISSN (online)1614-2241
ScopeGeneral Psychology
General Social Sciences

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