How to format your references using the Health Technology Assessment citation style

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

Fitch T. Journal club. A cognitive biologist foresees breakthroughs in understanding vocal learning. Nature 2010;466:163.

A journal article with 2 authors

Tilman D, Clark M. Global diets link environmental sustainability and human health. Nature 2014;515:518–22.

A journal article with 3 authors

Cabernard C, Prehoda KE, Doe CQ. A spindle-independent cleavage furrow positioning pathway. Nature 2010;467:91–4.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Kato YK, Myers RC, Gossard AC, Awschalom DD. Observation of the spin Hall effect in semiconductors. Science 2004;306:1910–3.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Paladino B. Corporate Performance Management Best Practices. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2013.

An edited book

Borba MC. Humans-with-Media and the Reorganization of Mathematical Thinking: Information and Communication Technologies, Modeling, Visualization and Experimentation. vol. 39. Boston, MA: Springer US; 2005.

A chapter in an edited book

Dharmadhikari AK, Mathur D. Propagation of Ultrashort Pulses in Condensed Media. In: Yamanouchi K, Giulietti A, Ledingham K, editors. Progress in Ultrafast Intense Laser Science: Volume V. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2010. p. 81–108.

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 Technology Assessment.

Blog post

Davis J. Researchers Link Humans Brains Allowing One To Guess What The Other Is Thinking. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015.

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. Vocational Education: 2-Year Colleges Improve Programs, Maintain Access for Special Populations. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1995.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Ortiz JA. New graduate nurses’ experiences of what accounts for their lack of professional confidence during their first year of practice. Doctoral dissertation, Minneapolis, MN: Capella University; 2014; 2014.

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

Kenigsberg B. Film Series. New York Times 2017:C21.

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 Technology Assessment
Abbreviation	Health Technol. Assess.
ISSN (print)	1366-5278
ISSN (online)	2046-4924
Scope	Health Policy

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