How to format your references using the Health Information Science and Systems citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Health Information Science and Systems. 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

1. Gewin V. Baby blues. Nature. 2005;433:780–1.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Vargas-Rodriguez O, Musier-Forsyth K. Structural biology: wobble puts RNA on target. Nature. 2014;510:480–1.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Nemecek JC, Wüthrich M, Klein BS. Global control of dimorphism and virulence in fungi. Science. 2006;312:583–8.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Wang S, Dong H, Hou W, Jiang H, Huang Q, Briggs BR, et al. Greater temporal changes of sediment microbial community than its waterborne counterpart in Tengchong hot springs, Yunnan Province, China. Sci Rep. 2014;4:7479.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Leis JW. Digital Signal Processing Using MATLAB for Students and Researchers. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2011.

An edited book

1. Kapidakis S, Mazurek C, Werla M, editors. Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries: 19th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries, TPDL 2015, Poznań, Poland, September 14-18, 2015, Proceedings. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Agarwal R, O’Regan D, Saker S. Lyapunov Inequalities. In: O’Regan D, Saker S, editors. Dynamic Inequalities On Time Scales. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014. p. 175–214.

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 Health Information Science and Systems.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. Could Jurassic Park Ever Come True? [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2014 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/technology/could-jurassic-park-ever-come-true/

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

1. Government Accountability Office. Information on the New Community of Soul City, North Carolina. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1975 Dec. Report No.: RED-76-52.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

1. Horta G. The potential of the Eurozone crisis to mobilize extreme right support in Spain, Portugal, and Italy [Doctoral dissertation]. [Chapel Hill, NC]: University of North Carolina; 2013.

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

1. Leland J. After Prayer, Practicing Her Swing. New York Times. 2017 May 12;MB2.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [1].
This sentence cites two references [1,2].
This sentence cites four references [1–4].

About the journal

Full journal title	Health Information Science and Systems
Abbreviation	Health Inf. Sci. Syst.
ISSN (online)	2047-2501
Scope