How to format your references using the Health Professions Education citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Health Professions Education. 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

Van Dyk SD. Astronomy. Elusive supernova progenitors. Science. 2003;302(5648):1161-1162.

A journal article with 2 authors

Zhou Q, Bachtrog D. Sex-specific adaptation drives early sex chromosome evolution in Drosophila. Science. 2012;337(6092):341-345.

A journal article with 3 authors

Pfeffer WT, Harper JT, O’Neel S. Kinematic constraints on glacier contributions to 21st-century sea-level rise. Science. 2008;321(5894):1340-1343.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Lilburn TG, Kim KS, Ostrom NE, Byzek KR, Leadbetter JR, Breznak JA. Nitrogen fixation by symbiotic and free-living spirochetes. Science. 2001;292(5526):2495-2498.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Pouly M, Kohlas J. Generic Inference. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2011.

An edited book

Carroll JM, ed. Innovative Practices in Teaching Information Sciences and Technology: Experience Reports and Reflections. Springer International Publishing; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

Fraley SI, Hale CM, Bloom RJ, Celedon A, Lee JSH, Wirtz D. Intra- and Extracellular Microrheology of Endothelial Cells in a 3D Matrix. In: Gerecht S, ed. Biophysical Regulation of Vascular Differentiation and Assembly. Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering. Springer; 2011:69-87.

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 Professions Education.

Blog post

Andrew E. Cancer Drug Cures Mice Of Hepatitis B. IFLScience. Published April 22, 2015. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/cancer-drug-cures-mice-hepatitis-b/

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. Transportation Infrastructure: States Benefit From Block Grant Flexibility. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1990.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Nguyen MS. Solid Families: Community-Based Program for Pregnant and Parenting Adolescents. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach; 2009.

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

Kelly K, Hubbard B. As Saudis Open Up, Investors Tiptoe In. New York Times. October 27, 2017:B1.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

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 Professions Education
Abbreviation	Health Prof. Educ.
ISSN (print)	2452-3011
Scope	General Medicine General Nursing Education