The Vancouver Style was first put forth by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors in 1978 and has been adopted by biomedical publishers worldwide. It is used primarily in health sciences and medicine.
Use the menu on the left to find citation examples for different types of resources.
Note: Presently there is not complete agreement among guides in citing electronic sources. The examples in this guide are provided as a guideline. Whichever format you follow, make sure that you are consistent throughout your work and consult your instructor about preferred conventions.
In the Vancouver Style your references should:
- be cited consecutively in the order in which they appear in your paper, presentation, poster, etc.
- be identified in text by superscript Arabic numbers.
- avoid including “personal communication” unless it provides essential information not available from a public source, in which case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parenthesis in the text, and the author should obtain written permission and confirmation of accuracy from the source of communication.
- list all authors/editors when six or less; when seven or more, list the first three and add "et al."
- list authors with surnames first followed by first and middle initials (if available).
- abbreviate journal titles in the format found at the PubMed Journals Database.
