How to format your references using the Health Research Policy and Systems citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Health Research Policy 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	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 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. Orrit M. Single molecules. Molecular entanglements. Science. 2002;298:369–70.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Zénon A, Krauzlis RJ. Attention deficits without cortical neuronal deficits. Nature. 2012;489:434–7.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Jung H, Green HW II, Dobrzhinetskaya LF. Intermediate-depth earthquake faulting by dehydration embrittlement with negative volume change. Nature. 2004;428:545–9.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Lotze HK, Lenihan HS, Bourque BJ, Bradbury RH, Cooke RG, Kay MC, et al. Depletion, degradation, and recovery potential of estuaries and coastal seas. Science. 2006;312:1806–9.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Agung IGN. Cross Section and Experimental Data Analysis Using Eviews. Singapore: John Wiley & Sons (Asia) Pte Ltd; 2011.

An edited book

1. Férard J-F, Blaise C, editors. Encyclopedia of Aquatic Ecotoxicology. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Cheng J, Shen D, Yap P-T, Basser PJ. Novel Single and Multiple Shell Uniform Sampling Schemes for Diffusion MRI Using Spherical Codes. In: Navab N, Hornegger J, Wells WM, Frangi A, editors. Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention -- MICCAI 2015: 18th International Conference, Munich, Germany, October 5-9, 2015, Proceedings, Part I. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015. p. 28–36.

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 Research Policy and Systems.

Blog post

1. Andrew E. When Myth Meets Reality: Fabled Beasts And Real-Life Creatures [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/when-myth-meets-reality-fabled-beasts-and-real-life-creatures/

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. NASA: Issues Surrounding the Transition from the Space Shuttle to the Next Generation of Human Space Flight Systems. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2007 Mar. Report No.: GAO-07-595T.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Farrell DP. Teachers’ Perceptions of How the Use of Peer Evaluation Could Improve Their Teaching Practice [Doctoral dissertation]. [College Park, MD]: University of Maryland, College Park; 2017.

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. Feeney K. Burgers With Attitude. New York Times. 2010 Oct 3;NJ9.

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 Research Policy and Systems
Abbreviation	Health Res. Policy Syst.
ISSN (online)	1478-4505
Scope	Health Policy