Vancouver Reference Style

Vancouver Reference Style

This referencing style—formally known as Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals—is recommended by the International Committee of Biomedical Journal Editors, and is used in manuscripts submitted to a range of biomedical journals as well as in medicine study.

Reference list

Vancouver is a numbered style, where each reference cited in the text of your paper is identified by a consecutive number, and fully described in a numbered reference list at the end.

Books:

Author. Title of book. Edition. City of Publication: Publisher; Year of publication.

Book chapters:

Author. Title of chapter. In Editors, editors. Title of book. Edition. City of Publication: Publisher; Year of publication.

Journal articles:

Author. Title of article. Standard Medline journal abbreviation. Year of publication; Volume and issue: first and last pagination.

Articles from a database:

Author. Title of article. Standard Medline journal abbreviation [Internet]. Year of publication [cited Date accessed]; Volume and issue: first and last pagination. Available from: URL. DOI: insert if available.

Website:

Website [Internet]. City of Publication: Author. Name of webpage [cited Date accessed]; [about estimate of length screens]. Available from: URL.

Items with multiple authors:

List up to the first six authors with the surname given before initials for other names. For more than six authors, list the first six followed by “et al”.

Mozart WA, Hoffmeister FA, Clementi C, Pleyel I, Krommer F, Cherubini, L et al

In-text citation

Vancouver style requires numbers in parentheses for in-text citations. It does not specify whether reference numbers should be placed before or after following citations, but you should be consistent in the location you use.

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