Vancouver Citation Style Made Easy

Over the centuries, many styles of reference citation have been developed. One of the newest players on the field is the Vancouver citation style. Developed in 1978 by a team of medical journal editors during a meeting in Vancouver, Canada (hence its name), Vancouver citation style attempts to simplify, yet strengthen, medical and psychological source documentation.

The Citation Parameters

Most non-periodical Vancouver citations use the following format:
Author/Editor. Title: subtitle. Edition. Volume. Place: Name of Publisher; Year. p. 1-9.

For articles or chapters within a given text:
Author/Editor. Article Title: subtitle. In: Editors. Title: Subtitle. Edition. Volume. Place: Name of Publisher; Year. p. 1-9

For periodical citations the format is:
Author. Article Title. Journal Abbreviation and Year. Volume(Number). p. 1-9.

For periodicals found online, add the following:
Available from: Database or Website Name. URL of source.

For citation requirements on other types of resources, consult the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals document found on the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) website at http://www.icmje.org.

Vancouver’s Source of Strength

Vancouver’s primary claim to strength stems primarily from its easy citation referencing style. In Vancouver referencing, the writer uses an Oxford-style numeric notation after the cited materials, but this marker does not point to a footnote or endnote. Vancouver numeric markers point to an associated bibliographic entry. The numeric markers may be surrounded by parentheses (“(12)”), brackets (“[12]”), or be superscripted (“12”) to separate it from the rest of the text. Multiple citations for a given section are listed with commas but no spaces separating them.

Vancouver bibliographic citations are listed and numbered in the order they appear within the text of the document, instead of alphabetically as with other citation styles. Once the citation is established, the writer uses that number each time the source is cited within the document itself to indicate various information that might come from the same source. Vancouver style also allows the inclusion of page or figure numbers, though this is rarely used unless critical to the text at hand. The specific page or figure note is included in the in-text reference (“12(fig7)”) instead of in the bibliographic citation.

Citation Abbreviations

Vancouver style also dictates a series of specific abbreviations that should be used within the body of your citations:

• Ed. – edition (used only if the edition is not the first edition)
• Et al – and others (used to indicate additional, unnamed authors)
• No. – Number (used to note the number in a periodical series)
• p. – Page/pages (used to indicate a specific chapter or section where the referenced information is found)
• para. – Paragraph (used to specify a particular paragraph being cited or referenced)
• Pt. – Part (used to identify a numerically identified portion of a larger document)
• Rev. – Revised (used to indicate a revised copy of a document, though not necessarily a completely different edition thereof)
• Suppl. – Supplement (used to indicate material coming from a supplemental report, appendix or source)
• Vol. – Volume (used in citations to denote a specific encyclopedic or periodical volume.

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