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Vancouver Referencing

Basic instructions on how to reference using the Vancouver system

Abbreviating journal titles

Titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the standard format.  Most journal abbreviations can be found at the National Library of Medicine's website, using the Journals database feature

Article in an electronic journal

Almost all of the journal articles you use will be in electronic format.  You need to include [Internet] [cited year month day] and either the main part of the website of the provider/publisher of the article, or the DOI, in your reference. 

 

Example using the publisher URL:  

1. Miah J, Haque E, Thampy H. Diversity training for medical students: evaluating impact. Educ Prim Care [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2022 Dec 15]; 98: 173-176. Available from: https://www.tandfonline.com.

The full URL for this reference is https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14739879.2019.1691470, but it is only necessary to include the first part - https://tandfonline.com.   

 

Example using the DOI:

 

1. Miah J, Haque E, Thampy H. Diversity training for medical students: evaluating impact. Educ Prim Care [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2022 Dec 15]; 98: 173-176. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/14739879.2019.1691470.  

 

Both reference examples above are acceptable practice for electronic journal articles.  Cite them Right asks for the month of publication of the article in addition to the year, however as this is not always straightforward to find, using the year of publication, as in the above examples, is sufficient.

Article in a print journal

Example:

2. Lowe A, Littlewood C, McLean S, Understanding physical activity promotion in physiotherapy practice: a qualitative study. Musculoskelet Sci Prac 2018; 35: 1-7.