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 (HSR). 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

Kronfeld AS. Physics. The weight of the world is quantum chromodynamics. Science. 2008;322(5905):1198-1199.

A journal article with 2 authors

Brown S, Zarin D. Environmental science. What does zero deforestation mean? Science. 2013;342(6160):805-807.

A journal article with 3 authors

Jiang H, Stein BE, McHaffie JG. Opposing basal ganglia processes shape midbrain visuomotor activity bilaterally. Nature. 2003;423(6943):982-986.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Rubenstein DR, Chamberlain CP, Holmes RT, et al. Linking breeding and wintering ranges of a migratory songbird using stable isotopes. Science. 2002;295(5557):1062-1065.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Raz D, Juhola A, Serrat-Fernandez J, Galis A. Fast and Efficient Context-Aware Services. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2006.

An edited book

Padilla E, Phan PC, eds. Christianities in Migration: The Global Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan US; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

Khamadieva A. Development of a Methodology for Measuring the Residents’ Utility Within Place Marketing. In: Zenker S, Jacobsen BP, eds. Inter-Regional Place Branding: Best Practices, Challenges and Solutions. Springer International Publishing; 2015:51-61.

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

Andrews R. This Ancient Bug Within A Lizard Within A Snake Will Blow Your Mind. IFLScience. September 8, 2016. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/this-ancient-bug-within-a-lizard-within-a-snake-will-blow-your-mind/

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. Buyouts at the Department of Education. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1994.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Kyereboah R. Criteria For Appointing Board Members to Corporate Boards in Ghana. Doctoral dissertation. University of Phoenix; 2015.

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

Bartlett B. It’s Not Too Late to Fix Fox News. New York Times. September 19, 2016:A21.

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