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Sunday, September 29, 2013

Vancouver Style Referencing

What is Vancouver style referencing?

Vancouver style referencing or citation is the way writing references in the academic publications. It is one of the most common citation styles used in biomedical sciences or medical publications.
When medical synopses/proposals, theses or dissertations, original articles, review articles, case reports, editorials, short communications or other medical publications are prepared, references or citations are needed both as in-text and as reference list in the end.

Why Vancouver style reference is called so?

Vancouver style citation originates its name from the meeting held in Vancouver BC (Canada) in 1978. Later on, the meeting gave birth to the establishment of International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

How to cite a journal article in Vancouver reference style?

In Vancouver style references, the following sequence is followed:

Authors name/s. Title of the article. Name of journal Year of publication;Volume number(Issue number):Page number/s.

Instructions 

Authors: While writing authors' names, write the last name first and then the initial/s of the first and middle (if middle name is present) names in capital letters. Separate authors' names with a comma and a space. Use the word "et al" after 6 authors if authors are more than 6 in number.
Article title: Write the full title of the article. Only capitalize the first letter of the first word of the journal title or the first letter of any important word in the title.
Journal name: Write the name of the journal in the short form. Search on PubMed to check the short names of different medical journals. There is no punctuation mark after the journal name except a space.
Year of publication: Write the year of the journal.
Volume and Issue numbers: Write the volume number of the journal. Write the issue number enclosed in the small brackets.
Page numbers: While writing the page numbers, write full number of first page and short number of the last page after dash. For example, if the article covers the pages from 311 to 314 on the journal manual, it will be written as 311-4. In this example, it is understood that the last page is 314.
Punctuation marks: Be careful about the punctuation marks and spaces while making a reference. Check the example for punctuation marks and spaces. (Punctuation marks are red and high-lighted in the illustration).

Example: 

Irshad M, Malik M, Furqan A. Intravenous paracetamol in pediatrics: A global perspective. Anaesth Pain & Intensive Care 2012;16(3):311-4.


 

Illustration! (Click to enlarge the image)


Vancouver Reference Style

Now check the screenshot of the article shown on the website (to enlarge the image, click on it).

Click to enlarge the image


By:
Dr. Muzammil Irshad, MBBS


Keywords: Vancouver style referencing, Vancouver style reference example, how to write Vancouver style references, Citation styles, Medical journal citation, International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, ICMJE





4 comments:

  1. One of the ways to be away from plagiarism is to know how to use references to the works of others, we have to appreciate others' work and prevent ourselves to use works of other as own, it's a great article and go on to give us more about how to give references, thank you Dr Muzammil.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You did great doc. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. A very informative article. Helped me allot thank you

    ReplyDelete

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