How to format your references using the Methods in Psychology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Methods in 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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

Grayson, M., 2015. Assessing science. Nature 520, S1.

A journal article with 2 authors

Yea, S.S., Fruman, D.A., 2011. Cell signaling. New mTOR targets Grb attention. Science 332, 1270–1271.

A journal article with 3 authors

Carlson, M.E., Hsu, M., Conboy, I.M., 2008. Imbalance between pSmad3 and Notch induces CDK inhibitors in old muscle stem cells. Nature 454, 528–532.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Sekine, T., Kakuta, T., Nakamura, T., Kobayashi, Y., Takashima, Y., Harada, A., 2014. A macroscopic reaction: direct covalent bond formation between materials using a Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reaction. Sci. Rep. 4, 6348.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Braha, A., Groza, G., 2006. Moderne Abwassertechnik. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, FRG.

An edited book

Huang, C.-C., Tucker, J.A. (Eds.), 2014. Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.

A chapter in an edited book

Jacobs, A., Duysburgh, P., Bleumers, L., Ongenae, F., Ackaert, A., Verstichel, S., 2014. The Innovation Binder Approach: A Guide Towards a Social-Technical Balanced Pervasive Health System, in: Holzinger, A., Ziefle, M., Röcker, C. (Eds.), Pervasive Health: State-of-the-Art and Beyond, Human–Computer Interaction Series. Springer, London, pp. 69–99.

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 Methods in Psychology.

Blog post

Luntz, S., 2016. Teenage Brains Are Wired For Learning [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/brain/teenage-brains-are-wired-for-learning/ (accessed 10.30.18).

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, 2013. DOD Business Systems Modernization: Further Actions Needed to Address Challenges and Improve Accountability (No. GAO-13-557). U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Litt, D., 2010. Social networking sites and adolescent alcohol use: The role of social images, social norms, and social comparison (Doctoral dissertation). George Washington University, Washington, DC.

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

Baker, P., Shear, M.D., 2017. President Shifts Rationale For Firing F.B.I. Director, Calling Him a ‘Showboat.’ New York Times A1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Grayson, 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Grayson, 2015; Yea and Fruman, 2011).

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

Two authors: (Yea and Fruman, 2011)
Three or more authors: (Sekine et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Methods in Psychology
ISSN (print)	2590-2601
Scope