Vancouver format is used by over 1,000 medical journals including The Lancet, BMJ, JAMA, and NEJM. Vancouver formatting is the standard for biomedical and health sciences publishing. Understanding Vancouver format is essential when formatting a document for medical journals.
The Vancouver Format Citation System
According to ICMJE Recommendations and NLM's Citing Medicine:
- Citations are numbered consecutively in order of first appearance
- Use superscripts (¹ ² ³) or brackets (1) (2) (3)
- Reuse the same number when citing a source again
- Reference list is ordered numerically, not alphabetically
Punctuation Placement
- Citations go AFTER periods and commas: "results.¹"
- Citations go BEFORE colons and semicolons: "results¹:"
Author Name Format
Author names are Surname followed by Initials with no periods or spaces:
- Correct: Smith JA
- Incorrect: Smith, J.A. or Smith J. A.
- List up to 6 authors, then add "et al."
Journal Abbreviations
Journal titles must be abbreviated according to NLM/MEDLINE standards. "New England Journal of Medicine" becomes "N Engl J Med".
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