How to format your references using the Acta Psychologica citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Acta Psychologica. 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 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

Diamandis, E. P. (2015). Getting noticed is half the battle. Science (New York, N.Y.), 349(6244), 206.

A journal article with 2 authors

Lee, R. C., & Ambros, V. (2001). An extensive class of small RNAs in Caenorhabditis elegans. Science (New York, N.Y.), 294(5543), 862–864.

A journal article with 3 authors

Wiedenheft, B., Sternberg, S. H., & Doudna, J. A. (2012). RNA-guided genetic silencing systems in bacteria and archaea. Nature, 482(7385), 331–338.

A journal article with 21 or more authors

Saal, A. E., Hauri, E. H., Langmuir, C. H., & Perfit, M. R. (2002). Vapour undersaturation in primitive mid-ocean-ridge basalt and the volatile content of Earth’s upper mantle. Nature, 419(6906), 451–455.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Cheng, V. S., & Tong, J. C. (2017). Building Sustainability in East Asia. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Chowdhury, T. A. (Ed.). (2014). Diabetes Management in Clinical Practice. Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Dye, H. A., Kauffman, L. H., & Manturov, V. O. (2011). On Two Categorifications of the Arrow Polynomial for Virtual Knots. In M. Banagl & D. Vogel (Eds.), The Mathematics of Knots: Theory and Application (pp. 95–124). 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 Acta Psychologica.

Blog post

Hale, T. (2016, May 1). 33 Rescued Circus Lions Are Returning To Africa By Airplane. IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/33-rescued-circus-lions-are-returning-africa-airplane/

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. (1979). Weaknesses in National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Facilities Utilization Program (PSAD-79-53). 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

Hendricks-Harris, M. T. (2012). Quality Induction: The Effects of Comprehensive Induction on New Teacher Retention and Job Satisfaction [Doctoral dissertation]. Lindenwood University.

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

Billard, M. (2010, May 6). For Stepping Across a Bridge. New York Times, E5.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Diamandis, 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Diamandis, 2015; Lee & Ambros, 2001).

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

Two authors: (Lee & Ambros, 2001)
Three or more authors: (Saal et al., 2002)

About the journal

Full journal title	Acta Psychologica
Abbreviation	Acta Psychol. (Amst.)
ISSN (print)	0001-6918
Scope	Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous) General Medicine Developmental and Educational Psychology Experimental and Cognitive Psychology