How to format your references using the Research in Developmental Disabilities citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Research in Developmental Disabilities. 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

Gravitz, L. (2011). Diagnostics: The early bird. Nature, 480(7377), S36-7.

A journal article with 2 authors

Killingsworth, M. A., & Gilbert, D. T. (2010). A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science (New York, N.Y.), 330(6006), 932.

A journal article with 3 authors

Brandvain, Y., Barker, M. S., & Wade, M. J. (2007). Gene co-inheritance and gene transfer. Science (New York, N.Y.), 315(5819), 1685.

A journal article with 21 or more authors

Ilani, S., Yacoby, A., Mahalu, D., & Shtrikman, H. (2001). Microscopic structure of the metal-insulator transition in two dimensions. Science (New York, N.Y.), 292(5520), 1354–1357.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Wright, D. (2016). Using Commercial Contracts. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Duque, G., & Kiel, D. P. (Eds.). (2009). Osteoporosis in Older Persons. Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Daneshzand, F., & Shoeleh, R. (2009). Multifacility Location Problem. In R. Zanjirani Farahani & M. Hekmatfar (Eds.), Facility Location: Concepts, Models, Algorithms and Case Studies (pp. 69–92). Physica-Verlag HD.

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 Research in Developmental Disabilities.

Blog post

Luntz, S. (2015, February 3). Orangutans Come Down From The Trees. 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. (1995). Personnel Security: Pass and Security Clearance Data for the Executive Office of the President (NSIAD-96-20). 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

Laskey, E. (2013). Plasma glucagon during development of insulin resistance among healthy individuals [Doctoral dissertation]. California State University, Long Beach.

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

Vecsey, G. (2010, May 12). Cushing Made His Choice; Voters Have an Easy One. New York Times, B18.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Gravitz, 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Gravitz, 2011; Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010).

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

Two authors: (Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010)
Three or more authors: (Ilani et al., 2001)

About the journal

Full journal title	Research in Developmental Disabilities
Abbreviation	Res. Dev. Disabil.
ISSN (print)	0891-4222
Scope	Clinical Psychology Developmental and Educational Psychology