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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Qualitative Health Research (QHR). 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 reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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

Hutchings, J. A. (2000). Collapse and recovery of marine fishes. Nature, 406(6798), 882–885.

A journal article with 2 authors

Zhang, W., & Aida, T. (2012). Chemistry. Thermally responsive pulsating nanotubules. Science (New York, N.Y.), 337(6101), 1462–1463.

A journal article with 3 authors

Royle, N. J., Russell, A. F., & Wilson, A. J. (2014). The evolution of flexible parenting. Science (New York, N.Y.), 345(6198), 776–781.

A journal article with 21 or more authors

Lesser, M. P., Mazel, C. H., Gorbunov, M. Y., & Falkowski, P. G. (2004). Discovery of symbiotic nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria in corals. Science (New York, N.Y.), 305(5686), 997–1000.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Lee, M., & Bieker, G. (2009). Mastering. Wiley Publishing, Inc.

An edited book

Aboh, E. O., & Essegbey, J. (Eds.). (2010). Topics in Kwa Syntax (Vol. 78). Springer Netherlands.

A chapter in an edited book

Wentz, B., Cirba, M., Kharal, N., Moran, J., & Slate, M. (2012). Evaluating the Accessibility and Usability of Blogging Platforms for Blind Users. In P. Langdon, J. Clarkson, P. Robinson, J. Lazar, & A. Heylighen (Eds.), Designing Inclusive Systems: Designing Inclusion for Real-world Applications (pp. 43–52). 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 Qualitative Health Research.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2015, June 24). Risks Vs Rewards: Why People With HIV Volunteer For ‘Cure’ Research. IFLScience. IFLScience.

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. (1993). Student Loans: Default Rates at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HRD-93-117FS). 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

Farooq, A. S. (2012). Singing the blues: Indicators of mental illness among nursing home elderly [Doctoral dissertation]. California State University, Long Beach.

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

Quain, J. R. (2016, October 13). One Day, Cars Will Connect With Your Fridge and Your Heart. New York Times, B5.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Hutchings, 2000).
This sentence cites two references (Hutchings, 2000; Zhang & Aida, 2012).

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

Two authors: (Zhang & Aida, 2012)
Three or more authors: (Lesser et al., 2004)

About the journal

Full journal title	Qualitative Health Research
ISSN (print)	1049-7323
ISSN (online)	1552-7557
Scope