How to format your references using the Social Psychology Quarterly citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Social Psychology Quarterly. 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

Sarewitz, Daniel. 2010. “World View: Curing Climate Backlash.” Nature 464(7285):28.

A journal article with 2 authors

Stevens, Molly M., and Julian H. George. 2005. “Exploring and Engineering the Cell Surface Interface.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 310(5751):1135–38.

A journal article with 3 authors

Ooi, S. L., D. D. Shoemaker, and J. D. Boeke. 2001. “A DNA Microarray-Based Genetic Screen for Nonhomologous End-Joining Mutants in Saccharomyces Cerevisiae.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 294(5551):2552–56.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Ainla, Alar, Irep Gözen, Bodil Hakonen, and Aldo Jesorka. 2013. “Lab on a Biomembrane: Rapid Prototyping and Manipulation of 2D Fluidic Lipid Bilayers Circuits.” Scientific Reports 3:2743.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Golio, Mike. 2006. Engineering Your Retirement. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Mason, John W., ed. 2008. Exoplanets: Detection, Formation, Properties, Habitability. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Tilkemeier, Peter L. 2016. “Accreditation and International Perspectives.” Pp. 37–47 in Quality Evaluation in Non-Invasive Cardiovascular Imaging, edited by P. L. Tilkemeier, R. C. Hendel, G. V. Heller, and J. A. Case. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

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 Social Psychology Quarterly.

Blog post

Andrew, Elise. 2015. “Philae Lander Is Missing.” IFLScience. Retrieved October 30, 2018.

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. 2012. Highway Trust Fund: Pilot Program Could Help Determine the Viability of Mileage Fees for Certain Vehicles. GAO-13-77. Washington, DC: 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

Bradford, Annette. 2015. “Internationalization Policy at the Genba: Exploring the Implementation of Social Science English-Taught Undergraduate Degree Programs in Three Japanese Universities.” 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

Schwartz, John. 2016. “Counting Green: How to Measure Your Carbon Tire Print.” New York Times, September 28, D2.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Sarewitz 2010).
This sentence cites two references (Sarewitz 2010; Stevens and George 2005).

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

Two authors: (Stevens and George 2005)
Three authors: (Ooi, Shoemaker, and Boeke 2001)
4 or more authors: (Ainla et al. 2013)

About the journal

Full journal title	Social Psychology Quarterly
Abbreviation	Soc. Psychol. Q.
ISSN (print)	0190-2725
Scope	Social Psychology