How to format your references using the Psychological Bulletin citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Psychological Bulletin. 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
Burke, B. (2006). Cell biology. Nuclear pore complex models gel. Science (New York, N.Y.), 314(5800), 766–767.
A journal article with 2 authors
Sikes, J. M., & Newmark, P. A. (2013). Restoration of anterior regeneration in a planarian with limited regenerative ability. Nature, 500(7460), 77–80.
A journal article with 3 authors
Unal, E., Kinde, B., & Amon, A. (2011). Gametogenesis eliminates age-induced cellular damage and resets life span in yeast. Science (New York, N.Y.), 332(6037), 1554–1557.
A journal article with 21 or more authors
Aoki, D., Huxley, A., Ressouche, E., Braithwaite, D., Flouquet, J., Brison, J. P., Lhotel, E., & Paulsen, C. (2001). Coexistence of superconductivity and ferromagnetism in URhGe. Nature, 413(6856), 613–616.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Celant, G., & Broniatowski, M. (2016). Interpolation and Extrapolation Optimal Designs 1. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
Dikshit, K. R. (2014). North-East India: Land, People and Economy (J. K. Dikshit, Ed.). Springer Netherlands.
A chapter in an edited book
McGonagle, J. J., & Vella, C. M. (2012). Figuring Out What You Really Need to Know. In C. M. Vella (Ed.), Proactive Intelligence: The Successful Executive’s Guide to Intelligence (pp. 41–52). 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 Psychological Bulletin.

Blog post
Andrew, E. (2015, April 28). Are We Living In A Hologram? IFLScience; IFLScience.

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). Information Technology: OMB Can Make More Effective Use of Its Investment Reviews (GAO-05-276). 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
Jurka, J. (2010). The importance of being a complement: CED effects revisited [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
Kelly, C. (2005, February 10). Know When to Hold ’em, Know When to Fold ’em. New York Times, C5.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Burke, 2006).
This sentence cites two references (Burke, 2006; Sikes & Newmark, 2013).

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

  • Two authors: (Sikes & Newmark, 2013)
  • Three or more authors: (Aoki et al., 2001)

About the journal

Full journal titlePsychological Bulletin
AbbreviationPsychol. Bull.
ISSN (print)0033-2909
ISSN (online)1939-1455
ScopeHistory and Philosophy of Science
General Psychology

Other styles