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

Kamionkowski M. Astrophysics: Gravity ripples chased. Nature. 2009;460(7258):964-965.

A journal article with 2 authors

Cohen J, Stewart I. Where are the dolphins? Nature. 2001;409(6823):1119-1122.

A journal article with 3 authors

Mendell JT, ap Rhys CMJ, Dietz HC. Separable roles for rent1/hUpf1 in altered splicing and decay of nonsense transcripts. Science. 2002;298(5592):419-422.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Saze H, Shiraishi A, Miura A, Kakutani T. Control of genic DNA methylation by a jmjC domain-containing protein in Arabidopsis thaliana. Science. 2008;319(5862):462-465.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Sigee DC. Freshwater Microbiology. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2005.

An edited book

Köppl C, Manley GA, Popper AN, Fay RR, eds. Insights from Comparative Hearing Research. Vol 49. Springer; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

Holcomb JB, Nunez TC. Damage Control Resuscitation. In: Martin MJ, Beekley AC, eds. Front Line Surgery: A Practical Approach. Springer; 2011:47-58.

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. Study Indicates Pregnancy Stress Can Affect Four Generations. IFLScience. August 7, 2014. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/study-indicates-pregnancy-stress-can-affect-four-generations/

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. Air Traffic Control: Software Problems at Control Centers Need Immediate Attention. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1991.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Barrios G. Outreach Program to Address the Unmet Needs of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom Veterans: A Grant Proposal. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach; 2012.

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

Qiu L. Fact Check: Rumors, Claims And Context on G.O.P. Health Bill. New York Times. May 6, 2017:A14.

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