Is Vancouver referencing numbered?

Yes, Vancouver referencing is numbered: the first source you cite is 1, the next new source is 2, and the reference list runs in that order. A paper that cites a book first and a journal article second lists the book as 1.

Does Vancouver use superscript or brackets?

Vancouver uses a number in round brackets, such as (4), the form the ICMJE Recommendations set for text, tables, and figure legends. Square brackets and superscripts come from university and journal house styles, such as the superscript numbers in The Lancet, so use one of them when your marking guide or the journal's instructions for authors name it.

How many authors do you list in Vancouver before et al.?

List 6 authors in a Vancouver reference before et al.: a source with 7 or more authors shows the first 6 names, then et al. A study by 9 nurses starts: Adams R, Ito B, Mendes C, Rao D, Novak E, Ola F, et al.

How do I cite a website in Vancouver style?

Cite a website in Vancouver style with the page title, [Internet], the place and publisher, the date, the date you viewed it in [cited], and Available from: with the URL. A page reads: Asthma action plans for children [Internet]. Manchester: Example Lung Foundation; 2024 Nov 18 [cited 2026 Sep 1]. Available from: https://www.example.org/asthma-plans

Do Vancouver references need an access date?

Yes, Vancouver references need an access date for every source read online, written in square brackets as [cited 2026 Jun 15]. Print books and journal articles take none, and neither does an article cited by its DOI in the print form of the NLM samples.

What is the latest edition of Vancouver style?

The latest edition of Vancouver style is the 2nd edition of Citing Medicine, which the National Library of Medicine published online in 2007 and revises one chapter at a time. The ICMJE Recommendations name Citing Medicine as their reference standard.

Free Vancouver Citation Generator – Citing Medicine Style

What Is a Vancouver Citation Generator?

A Vancouver paper marks each source with a number in round brackets that points to the same number in the reference list.

A Vancouver citation generator is a free online citation tool that turns the details of a source into a numbered Vancouver reference and its in-text citation. The tool writes each author as a surname with initials, builds the date;volume(issue):pages block, shortens page ranges, and adds the online markers of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to web sources. Students in the UK and Australia often call it a Vancouver referencing generator or a citation maker.

Health sciences students in medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, physiotherapy, public health, and the biomedical sciences use it for essays, lab reports, and dissertations. UK universities, such as York and Imperial College London, and Australian universities, such as Monash, Queensland, and Newcastle, publish their own Vancouver referencing guides for these subjects. Researchers use it for manuscripts sent to biomedical journals, such as BMJ, that follow the ICMJE Recommendations.

What Is Vancouver Style?

Vancouver style, or the Vancouver system, is a numbered citation system for biomedical writing, with its rules set by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and its reference format set by NLM. The name comes from a 1978 meeting of medical journal editors in Vancouver, Canada. Their rules became the Uniform Requirements, now called the ICMJE Recommendations, which send authors to NLM’s Citing Medicine for the layout of each reference.

Vancouver style has 2 linked parts:

(1)

In-Text Citation

A number in round brackets marks each sentence that uses a source. The first source cited is (1), and the next new source is (2).

Reference List

The list at the end of the paper gives each source's full details, numbered in the same order as the text.

Parts of a Vancouver Reference

A Vancouver journal reference has 5 parts: the authors, the article title, the abbreviated journal title, the date with the volume and issue, and the page range. The color-coded reference below is sample 1 from NLM’s list of formatted references, with its in-text citation.

Reference list entry

1. Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002 Jul 25;347(4):284-7.

In-text citation

(1)

AuthorTitlePublisher or sourceDatePage or locator

A period closes the authors, the title, and the journal. A semicolon joins the date to the volume, and a colon opens the pages. Vancouver prints no italics, no bold, and no quotation marks.

Vancouver vs. Harvard, APA, and AMA

Vancouver differs from Harvard referencing and APA in 2 ways: it cites a source by number instead of by author and year, and it orders the reference list by first citation instead of by surname. AMA numbers sources the same way, and so does the citation-sequence system of the Council of Science Editors (CSE). The table compares how each style cites the 2002 article by Halpern, Ubel, and Caplan.

Style	In-text citation	Reference list order	Date viewed, for online sources
Vancouver	(1)	Citation order	[cited 2026 Jun 15]
AMA	Superscript number¹	Citation order	Accessed June 15, 2026.
Harvard	(Halpern, Ubel and Caplan, 2002)	Alphabetical	(Accessed: 15 June 2026)
APA	(Halpern et al., 2002)	Alphabetical	Only for pages that change over time

How to Use Our Vancouver Citation Generator

To use the Vancouver citation generator, follow these 6 steps at the top of the page:

Pick the source type
Website, Book, Journal, and Video have their own tabs. Open More for the other 40 source types, such as Conference Paper, Thesis or Dissertation, and Patent, and type in its search box to find one fast.
Search for the source
Type an article or book title and pick your source from the results, or paste an identifier, a video link, or a web address and press Cite. The form fills with the details the search returns.
Type the NLM journal abbreviation
Replace a full journal title with its abbreviation from the NLM Catalog. The tool prints the name you type and never guesses an abbreviation.
Add the place and the date viewed
Type the city of publication for books and reports, and the day you read an online source in the Date accessed field. A blank city prints as [place unknown].
Check the capitalization
Keep Use sentence case for titles on to lowercase every word after the first, then capitalize names, places, and other proper nouns again.
Number your references
Press Add to references in the order you cite each source. The list numbers them 1., 2., 3., the in-text citation shows the matching number, and Copy all copies the whole list.

The search box takes 7 kinds of input: a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), a PubMed ID (PMID), an International Standard Book Number (ISBN), an arXiv ID, a YouTube or Vimeo link, any other web address, and a book or article title. PubMed fills the form for a PMID, the DOI registries Crossref and DataCite for a DOI or an arXiv ID, Crossref for an article title, and Open Library for an ISBN or a book title. For a web address, the tool reads the title, author, site name, and date that the page states; a few sites block this, and then only the link is added.

Source Types the Generator Covers

The generator covers 44 source types in 8 groups:

Group	Source types
Books	Book, e-book, edited book, translated book, book chapter
Articles	Journal article, database article, newspaper article, magazine article, review, book review, preprint
Web and social media	Website, blog post, social media post, AI-generated content
Audio and video	Video or YouTube, film, TV or radio broadcast, podcast episode, song
Art and visual	Artwork, image or photograph, map
Research and reports	Thesis or dissertation, report, government report, dataset, standard, conference paper
Talks and conversations	Lecture, speech, interview, email, personal communication
Legal, archival, and reference	Legal case, bill, statute, regulation, patent, archival document, dictionary entry, encyclopedia entry, Bible

The tool formats one paper’s references at a time, copies them to Microsoft Word or Google Docs, and does not export RIS or BibTeX files. Reference managers such as Zotero, EndNote, and Mendeley keep long-term libraries and offer their own Vancouver output styles.

How to Cite Sources in Vancouver Style

To cite a source in Vancouver style, mark the sentence with the source’s number, then write the reference in the order Citing Medicine sets: authors, title, container, date, and location. The container is the larger work that holds a source, such as the journal for an article or the book for a chapter, and the location is a page range or a URL.

Vancouver Reference Templates by Source Type

Vancouver reference templates show where each detail goes for the 8 most cited source types. The templates follow Citing Medicine.

Source	Reference template
Journal article	Author AA, Author BB. Title of article. Abbrev Journal. Year Mon Day;Volume(Issue):pages.
Online journal article	Author AA. Title of article. Abbrev Journal [Internet]. Year Mon [cited Year Mon Day];Volume(Issue):pages. Available from: URL
Book	Author AA. Title of book. Edition. Place: Publisher; Year.
Book chapter	Author AA. Title of chapter. In: Editor AA, editor. Title of book. Place: Publisher; Year. p. pages.
Website	Title of page [Internet]. Place: Publisher; Year Mon Day [cited Year Mon Day]. Available from: URL
Newspaper article	Author AA. Headline. Newspaper. Year Mon Day;Sect. A:page.
Dissertation	Author AA. Title [dissertation]. Place: University; Year.
Conference paper	Author AA. Title. Paper presented at: Conference name; Year Mon Day-Day; City, Country.

Citing Online Sources: [Internet] and [cited]

Citing Medicine gives every online source 3 additions: [Internet] after the journal or title, [cited Year Mon Day] after the publication date, and Available from: with the full URL. [Internet] is the medium designator, the type of medium the source was read in. The cited date, which Citing Medicine calls the date of citation, is the day you read the page. Write months as 3 letters, such as Jun, and put the year first.

End the URL with a period only when it ends with a slash, the rule in chapter 23 of Citing Medicine. The NLM samples print an article read through its DOI in the print form, then add doi: and the DOI as the last element, with no [Internet] and no cited date.

Missing Authors, Places, and Dates

Start the reference with the title, when a source names no author. Write a group author’s full name, such as Diabetes Prevention Program Research Group, and type it in the Last name field of the generator.

Citing Medicine fills 3 gaps with bracketed words: [place unknown] for a missing place of publication, [publisher unknown] for a missing publisher, and the cited date alone for an undated web page. A dated page reads 2025 Mar 2 [cited 2026 Jun 15], and an undated one reads [cited 2026 Jun 15] straight after the publisher.

Personal Communications and Unpublished Work

(Ortiz L, personal communication, 2024 May 1)

Vancouver cites personal communications such as emails, conversations, and letters in the text only: the ICMJE asks for the person's name and the date in parentheses, and the source gets no number or reference list entry.

Vancouver In-Text Citations and Numbering in Citation Order

A Vancouver in-text citation is the source’s reference number in round brackets, assigned in the order the source first appears in your text. The ICMJE Recommendations set the rule in 2 parts: number references consecutively in the order of first mention, and identify them by Arabic numerals in parentheses. Citing Medicine leaves the in-text form to each publisher and calls this numbering the citation-sequence system, which is why some university guides print [1] or a superscript.

A short passage shows sources numbered in the order of first mention: Alcohol hand rubs cut infection rates (1). Two later trials confirmed the effect (2,3), and a 2020 review repeated the first finding (1).

Where the Number Goes in a Sentence

Put the citation number straight after the fact, quotation, or author name it supports. A number in round brackets sits before the full stop, as in …in older adults (4). Superscript numbers go after full stops and commas in most university guides, and inside colons and semicolons.

Citing Several Sources at Once

Separate the numbers of several sources with commas, and join 3 or more consecutive numbers with a hyphen: (2,5,7) and (4-6). Two consecutive numbers keep the comma, as in (1,2).

Naming Authors in the Sentence

Name the author in the sentence, then put the number right after the name: Halpern et al. (1) reviewed transplant outcomes. Give both surnames for 2 authors, and the first surname with et al. for 3 or more.

How to Format the Vancouver Reference List

To format a Vancouver reference list, follow these 5 rules:

Title the list References and start it on a new page at the end of the paper.
Number the entries in the order in which they are first cited, 1., 2., 3., never alphabetically.
Give each source one entry and the same number, however many times the text cites it.
List only sources you have read. Citing Medicine warns against copying references from other reference lists.
Check for retracted articles. The ICMJE asks authors to cite a retracted article only when the text discusses the retraction.

NLM Journal Abbreviations and Author Rules

Vancouver shortens journal titles to the form NLM uses in MEDLINE, and it writes every author as a surname followed by initials. The ICMJE Recommendations require the MEDLINE abbreviation, so New England Journal of Medicine becomes N Engl J Med. Earlier versions of the Uniform Requirements named Index Medicus, the printed journal index NLM published until December 2004, as the source of each journal abbreviation.

How to Find a Journal’s NLM Abbreviation

To find a journal’s NLM abbreviation, follow these 4 steps:

Open the NLM Catalog journal search at ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals.
Search the full journal title, such as Journal of Clinical Nursing.
Copy the NLM Title Abbreviation, J Clin Nurs, and skip the ISO Abbreviation, which carries periods.
Type the NLM journal abbreviation in the Journal name field of the generator.

A one-word title, such as Pediatrics or Neurology, stays in full. Citing Medicine asks for one form across the whole list: keep full titles in all references, if your marker accepts a full title in one of them.

Author Names: Surname and Initials

Vancouver author names pair the surname with author initials and follow 5 rules from Citing Medicine and the NLM samples:

Rule	Typed name	Vancouver form
Up to 2 initials, no periods or spaces	Scott D. Halpern	Halpern SD
Jr and Sr stay; II, III, and IV become 2nd, 3rd, and 4th	Larry C. Gilstrap III	Gilstrap LC 3rd
Particles and hyphens stay as printed	R. J. van Moorselaar; K. Shrader-Frechette	van Moorselaar RJ; Shrader-Frechette K
A semicolon sets off a group author	N. Harving and the Alf-One Study Group	Harving N; Alf-One Study Group
Up to 6 names; 7 or more show the first 6 + et al.	8 authors	Rose ME, Huerbin MB, Melick J, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al.

Citing Medicine lists every author by default and offers the 6-name limit as an option. The NLM samples for journal authors apply the limit, with the instruction to list the first six authors followed by et al., and so does the generator.

Vancouver Edition Guidelines

Vancouver style has no numbered editions of its own: its reference format follows the 2nd edition of Citing Medicine, and its numbering rules follow the current ICMJE Recommendations. NLM revises Citing Medicine chapter by chapter on the NCBI Bookshelf; the journals chapter was last updated in May 2018. Citing Medicine builds on the bibliographic references standard ANSI/NISO Z39.29-2005 of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO), the international standard ISO 690, and NLM’s MEDLARS Indexing Manual.

Citing Medicine, 2nd Edition, and the ICMJE Recommendations

The 2 documents behind Vancouver style grew in 6 steps:

Year	Step
1978	Medical journal editors meet in Vancouver and agree on a common format
1979	The first Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals appear
1991	NLM publishes Recommended Formats for Bibliographic Citation
2001	NLM adds a supplement on Internet formats
2007	Citing Medicine, 2nd edition, replaces both NLM documents online
2013	The Uniform Requirements are renamed the ICMJE Recommendations

University Versions of Vancouver

University versions of the Vancouver referencing style split into 2 families. Guides such as York’s follow Citing Medicine, as this generator does, while guides such as Monash’s Vancouver 2022 and Queensland’s Vancouver (AMA) follow the AMA Manual of Style. The AMA-based family changes 4 details:

Detail	Citing Medicine Vancouver	AMA-based Vancouver
In-text number	(1)	Superscript¹
Online sources	[Internet], [cited 2026 Jun 15], Available from:	DOI or URL, no [Internet]
Books	Place: Publisher; Year.	Publisher; Year.
Page ranges	284-7	284-287

Follow your own university’s guide when it names the AMA family.

Common Vancouver Citation Mistakes to Avoid

There are 6 common Vancouver citation mistakes, from numbering the list alphabetically to leaving out the date viewed. Each mistake below shows a wrong version and the corrected version.

1Numbering the reference list alphabetically

Wrong1. Adams R ... 2. Brown T ... 3. Chen L ... in A to Z order

Right1. the first source the text cites, 2. the second, whatever the surnames
2Writing the journal title in full

WrongOkafor DR, Ito B, Novak E. Hand hygiene audits in intensive care units. American Journal of Infection Control. 2024 Mar 4;52(3):301-7.

RightOkafor DR, Ito B, Novak E. Hand hygiene audits in intensive care units. Am J Infect Control. 2024 Mar 4;52(3):301-7.
3Adding periods and commas to author names

WrongOkafor, D. R., Ito, B., & Novak, E.

RightOkafor DR, Ito B, Novak E.
4Setting the journal title in italics

WrongAm J Infect Control. 2024 Mar 4;52(3):301-7.

RightAm J Infect Control. 2024 Mar 4;52(3):301-7.
5Printing the page range in full

Wrong2024 Mar 4;52(3):301-307.

Right2024 Mar 4;52(3):301-7.
6Leaving out the date viewed for an online source

WrongTanaka M. Pain scores after day-case knee surgery. J Clin Nurs [Internet]. 2025 May;34(5):1880-8. Available from: https://journals.example.org/jcn/34/5/1880

RightTanaka M. Pain scores after day-case knee surgery. J Clin Nurs [Internet]. 2025 May [cited 2026 Jun 15];34(5):1880-8. Available from: https://journals.example.org/jcn/34/5/1880

Why Use Our Vancouver Citation Generator?

Use our Vancouver style citation generator for 3 reasons: its output matches NLM’s own sample references, its in-text numbers always match the list, and it is a free citation generator with no sign-up.

Tested Against NLM's Own Examples

The output was checked against 50 references copied from NLM's sample list and the chapters of Citing Medicine, from journal articles and dissertations to patents, datasets, and preprints.

Numbers That Match

Each source added to the list takes the next number, and its in-text citation shows that number, so the list and the text stay in step.

Free and Private

There is no account and no limit. Typed details stay in your browser; only a search or a pasted identifier goes to the lookup service.

Our Vancouver citation generator saves time on every numbered reference list and returns Vancouver style references in the order and punctuation of Citing Medicine. Check each reference against the source before you submit, since a database record can carry a misspelled name or a missing page.