How to format your references using the Health Services Research citation style

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

Adami, C. 2006. “Computer Science. What Do Robots Dream Of?” Science (New York, N.Y.), 314(5802): 1093–1094.

A journal article with 2 authors

Sfeir, A. and T. de Lange. 2012. “Removal of Shelterin Reveals the Telomere End-Protection Problem.” Science (New York, N.Y.), 336(6081): 593–597.

A journal article with 3 authors

Gembris, D., J. G. Taylor, and D. Suter. 2002. “Trends and Random Fluctuations in Athletics.” Nature, 417(6888): 506.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Angers, R. C., S. R. Browning, T. S. Seward, C. J. Sigurdson, M. W. Miller, E. A. Hoover, and G. C. Telling. 2006. “Prions in Skeletal Muscles of Deer with Chronic Wasting Disease.” Science (New York, N.Y.), 311(5764): 1117.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Reinke, P. 2012. Inorganic Nanostructures, Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

An edited book

Savino, F. 2009. Nutrizione Parenterale in Pediatria edited by M. Marengo and R. Miniero, Milano: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Rintaluoma, T., T. Reinikka, J. Rouvinen, J. Boutellier, P. Jääskeläinen, and O. Silvén. 2009. “Programmable Accelerators for Reconfigurable Video Decoder.” In Embedded Computer Systems: Architectures, Modeling, and Simulation: 9th International Workshop, SAMOS 2009, Samos, Greece, July 20-23, 2009. Proceedings, edited by K. Bertels, N. Dimopoulos, C. Silvano, and S. Wong, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 36–47. Berlin, Heidelberg: 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 Health Services Research.

Blog post

Davis, J. 2017. “Ban On Testing Vaccines On Captive Apes Threatens Their Wild Counterparts,” IFLScience, IFLScience [accessed on October 30, 2018]. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/ban-on-testing-vaccines-on-captive-apes-threatens-their-wild-counterparts/.

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. 1995. “Trans-Alaska Pipeline: Actions to Improve Safety Are Under Way,” RCED-95-162, Washington, DC: 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

Marshall, L. D. 2015. The Jeweled Net, Sacred Landscape, and the Vision of the Heart. Doctoral dissertation. Carpinteria, CA: Pacifica Graduate Institute.

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

Johnson, G. 2016. “Feeding the Particle Physics Beast.” New York Times: D6.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Adami 2006).
This sentence cites two references (Adami 2006; Sfeir and de Lange 2012).

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

Two authors: (Sfeir and de Lange 2012)
Three authors: (Gembris, Taylor, and Suter 2002)
4 or more authors: (Angers et al. 2006)

About the journal

Full journal title	Health Services Research
Abbreviation	Health Serv. Res.
ISSN (print)	0017-9124
ISSN (online)	1475-6773
Scope	Health Policy