How to format your references using the The Behavior Analyst citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The Behavior Analyst. 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 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

Pockley, P. (2001). Climate change transforms island ecosystem. Nature, 410(6829), 616.

A journal article with 2 authors

Toyoshima, C., & Mizutani, T. (2004). Crystal structure of the calcium pump with a bound ATP analogue. Nature, 430(6999), 529–535.

A journal article with 3 authors

Beekman, M., Calis, J. N., & Boot, W. J. (2000). Parasitic honeybees get royal treatment. Nature, 404(6779), 723.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Zhang, H., Yang, Z., Shen, Y., & Tong, L. (2003). Crystal structure of the carboxyltransferase domain of acetyl-coenzyme A carboxylase. Science (New York, N.Y.), 299(5615), 2064–2067.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Equipment Testing Procedures Committee. (2005). Continuous Direct-Heat Rotary Dryers. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Witt, C. (Ed.). (2011). Feminist Metaphysics: Explorations in the Ontology of Sex, Gender and the Self. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

A chapter in an edited book

Aziz, C. E., & Hatzinger, P. B. (2009). Perchlorate Sources, Source Identification And Analytical Methods. In R. C. Borden, J. D. Coates, E. E. Cox, D. C. Downey, P. J. Evans, P. B. Hatzinger, et al. (Eds.), In Situ Bioremediation of Perchlorate in Groundwater (pp. 55–78). New York, NY: 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 The Behavior Analyst.

Blog post

Andrews, R. (2016, August 29). This Tiny Hamster With An Equally Tiny Cast Is All You Need To See Today. IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/tiny-hamster-equally-tiny-cast-all-need-see-today/. Accessed 30 October 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. (2013). Satellite Control: Long-Term Planning and Adoption of Commercial Practices Could Improve DOD’s Operations (No. GAO-13-315). 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

Quintero, M. C. (2017). Constructing a Clinical Research Data Management System (Doctoral dissertation). University of South Florida, Tampa, FL.

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

Kolomatsky, M. (2017, September 21). Where It’s Good to Have Four Legs. New York Times, p. RE2.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Pockley 2001).
This sentence cites two references (Pockley 2001; Toyoshima and Mizutani 2004).

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

Two authors: (Toyoshima and Mizutani 2004)
Three or more authors: (Zhang et al. 2003)

About the journal

Full journal title	The Behavior Analyst
Abbreviation	Behav. Anal.
ISSN (print)	0738-6729
ISSN (online)	2196-8918
Scope	Clinical Psychology Social Psychology

Research and Writing Guides