Vancouver format citation

Hundreds of scientific journals use author-number systems. They all follow the same essential logic (that is, numbered citations pointing to numbered list entries), although the trivial details of the output mask, such as punctuation, casing of titles, and italic, vary widely among them. They have existed for over a century; the names "Vancouver system" or "Vancouver style" have existed since 1978. The latest version of the latter is Citing Medicine, per the References > Style and Format section of the ICMJE Recommendations.

In the broad sense, the Vancouver system refers to any author-number system regardless of the formatting details. A narrower definition of the Vancouver system refers to a specific author-number format specified by the ICMJE Recommendations (Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts, URM). For example, the AMA reference style is Vancouver style in the broad sense because it is an author-number system that conforms to the URM, but not in the narrow sense because its formatting differs in some minor details from the NLM/PubMed style (such as what is italicized and whether the citation numbers are bracketed).

Your list of references should identify all references cited (eg books, journal articles, pamphlets, internet sites, CDRom, DVD, etc) in sufficient detail so that others can locate and consult your references.

The Vancouver reference style is the one that is commonly used in the medical field and when publishing in medical journals.

It is very important that you use the right punctuation and that the order of details in the reference is correct.

A List of reference at the end of the assignment, research report or journal manuscript contains the full details of all the in-text citations.

In-text referencing

The identification of references within the text of your assignment are identified by Arabic numerals in superscript.

A number is assigned to each reference as it is cited. A number must be used even if an author was named in the sentence, eg. Smith12 argued that.....

Use double quotation marks to enclose a direct quotation. Type [sic] after a misspelled word or an incorrect or apparently absurd statement in quoted material to indicate that this is an accurate rendition of the original source. Use single quotation marks for quotations within quotations.

The original number assigned to a reference is re-used every time the reference is cited in text, regardless of the previous position in text. 

When multiple references are cited at a given place in a text, use a hyphen to join the first and last numbers that are inclusive, eg. 6-8

Use commas (no spaces) to separate non-inclusive numbers eg. 2,3,4,5,7,9 is abbreviated to 2-5,7,9

Placement of referencing numbers with a text should be carefully considered, eg. a particular reference may be relevant to only part of a sentence. However, as a general rule, reference numbers should be placed outside full stops and commas, inside colons and semi-colons.

The main advantage of the Vancouver style is that the text reads more easily, without the intrusion of in-text quotations which can be difficult to keep brief. Reader can also check the list of references as they read through the text, without having to search through the list of references alphabetically for the first author of a particular referenced publication.

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