Vancouver Referencing Guide for Canadian Healthcare Students

Vancouver referencing numbers citations sequentially in the order they first appear in the text, using either superscript numbers or numbers in square brackets. The reference list at the end is in citation order, not alphabetical. Each reference uses a fixed format: author surnames and initials, article title, journal abbreviation, year, volume(issue), page range.

In-text: place numbers after punctuation: 'recent evidence supports early mobilisation.[3]' or '...mobilisation.3'. Once assigned, a reference keeps its number throughout the paper.

Author format: list up to six authors with surname followed by initials (no full stops between initials). After six, use 'et al.'

Journal abbreviations: use the NLM Catalog (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals) - spelling out a journal that should be abbreviated is the most common Vancouver deduction.

DOIs and PMIDs: include both when available; many Canadian programs now require them for systematic reviews and EBP papers.

Reference list ordering: by first appearance, never alphabetical. Renumbering after edits is mechanical with Zotero or EndNote, painful by hand.

Personal communications, unpublished data, and submitted-but-not-yet-accepted manuscripts go in the text as parenthetical notes - never in the numbered reference list.