Vancouver Citation Generator
NLM-style numbered references with MEDLINE journal abbreviations, from a PMID or DOI.
Autofill
What the page says
Source details
Your citation
Fill in the details or use autofill — the citation appears here as you type.
References
Saved in this browser only. “Copy list” keeps italics when you paste into Word or Google Docs.
In the text:
About the Vancouver Citation Generator
Build Vancouver references — the numbered style of medical and health-science journals, set out in the ICMJE Recommendations and the National Library of Medicine’s Citing Medicine — for journal articles, books and chapters, conference papers, reports, theses, patents, web pages, newspaper articles, videos, data sets and software. Paste a PubMed ID, a DOI, an ISBN or a web address to fill in the form, or type the details yourself; the reference updates as you type.
The formatting follows NLM’s sample references for the ICMJE: surnames with up to two initials and no full stops (Halpern SD), the first six authors and “et al.”, sentence-case titles, MEDLINE journal abbreviations (N Engl J Med), dates as 2002 Jul 25, “;347(4):284-7” with repeated page digits dropped, and “[Internet]”, “[cited …]” and “Available from:” for online sources. Your list is numbered in the order you first cite each source, and the in-text citation is the number in parentheses, in brackets or as a superscript, as your journal asks.
How to use it
- Paste a PMID (for example
12140307), a DOI, an ISBN or a web address into Autofill — or choose the type of source and fill in the form. - Check the Abbreviated title of a journal: PubMed records give the MEDLINE abbreviation; for a DOI the tool asks the NLM Catalog. If it is still empty, type the full journal name and press Look up in NLM Catalog.
- Open Vancouver settings to choose how many authors to list (six and et al., all, or three), how numbers appear in the text — (1), [1] or ¹ — and whether to add the DOI and PMID.
- Press Add to list in the order you first cite the sources: the first is 1. Use Up and Down to renumber, and Cite several references to write (1-3,5).
- Press Copy list to paste the numbered list into Word or Google Docs, or download it as .rtf or .txt.
Examples
Autofill · PMID 12140307
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. doi: 10.1056/NEJMsb020632. PubMed PMID: 12140307.
NLM’s first sample reference; the DOI and PMID notes are optional (style settings).
Journal article · Rose, Huerbin, Melick, Marion, Palmer, Schiding and Kochanek · Brain Res. 2002;935(1-2):40-6
2. Rose ME, Huerbin MB, Melick J, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Regulation of interstitial excitatory amino acid concentrations after cortical contusion injury. Brain Res. 2002;935(1-2):40-6.
Book chapter · Meltzer, Kallioniemi and Trent · in Vogelstein and Kinzler (editors), The genetic basis of human cancer · New York: McGraw-Hill; 2002 · pages 93–113
3. Meltzer PS, Kallioniemi A, Trent JM. Chromosome alterations in human solid tumors. In: Vogelstein B, Kinzler KW, editors. The genetic basis of human cancer. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2002. p. 93-113.
Web page · eatright.org · Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Chicago · copyright 2016 · accessed 27 December 2016
4. eatright.org [Internet]. Chicago: Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics; c2016 [cited 2016 Dec 27]. Available from: https://www.eatright.org/.
Citing Medicine ends a reference with a full stop after the address only when the address ends in a slash.
Common uses
- Reference lists for medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, public health and biomedical-science assignments, theses and journal manuscripts.
- Turning PMIDs from PubMed into finished references with the MEDLINE journal abbreviation.
- Checking a reference written by hand: the checks list missing years, invalid DOIs and PMIDs, and full journal names that should be abbreviated.
- Keeping the list in citation order while you write, and renumbering it when a paragraph moves.
The Vancouver rules this generator applies
- Authors: surname, then up to two initials with no full stops or spaces (Halpern SD). Jr and Sr follow the initials without a comma; II, III and IV become 2nd, 3rd and 4th. Accents are removed from names, as Citing Medicine asks (an option keeps them). Organisations follow a semicolon after individual authors.
- How many: the first six, then “et al.” (ICMJE). Citing Medicine itself lists every author; choose that, or three, in the settings.
- Titles: as in the source, in sentence case, ending with a full stop. No italics anywhere.
- Journals: the MEDLINE abbreviation, then the date (year, three-letter month, day), the volume, the issue in parentheses and the pages with repeated digits dropped: 2002 Jul 25;347(4):284-7.
- Books and chapters: place, a colon, the publisher, a semicolon and the year — St. Louis: Mosby; 2002 — with “In:” and “editors” for chapters and “p.” before the chapter’s pages.
- Online sources: [Internet] after the title, the date seen as [cited 2002 Aug 12] and “Available from:” with the address. With a DOI, the reference keeps the print form and adds “doi:” at the end.
- In the text: the reference’s number in parentheses — (1) — as the ICMJE recommends; brackets and superscripts are options because journals differ.
Sources: NLM’s Samples of Formatted References for Authors of Journal Articles, Citing Medicine, 2nd edition and the ICMJE Recommendations on preparing a manuscript.
MEDLINE journal abbreviations
The ICMJE asks for journal titles abbreviated in the style MEDLINE uses — N Engl J Med, J Am Coll Cardiol, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A — which you can check in the NLM Catalog. A PubMed record (autofill from a PMID) carries it. For a DOI, the tool looks the journal up in the NLM Catalog by its ISSN; failing that, an abbreviation with full stops from the DOI record (J. Appl. Phys.) is written without them (J Appl Phys). Look up in NLM Catalog searches by the exact journal name you typed. Journals that MEDLINE does not index may have no NLM abbreviation: give the abbreviation the journal uses, or the full title.
Limitations
- The common reference types are built in. Citing Medicine covers many more (parts of journals and books, maps, legal material, audiovisual media, databases, forthcoming and retracted articles); adjust those by hand.
- Newspaper sections and columns (Sect. A:2 (col. 4)), supplements and parts of issues, article types such as [letter], and extents such as [about 2 screens] are not separate fields: type them into the nearest field or add them afterwards.
- Names are split automatically when autofill gives them in one piece; check compound surnames (Lopez Moreno, van de Kamp) and organisations.
- Sentence case cannot recognise every proper noun: after converting a title, re-capitalise names of people, places, organisations, genes and drugs as needed.
- Many news and shopping sites block automated requests, so web-address autofill may find nothing on them.
Privacy
Everything you type stays in your browser except the autofill box: a PMID goes to PubMed and a journal’s name or ISSN to the NLM Catalog (NCBI), a DOI to doi.org, an ISBN to Open Library, and a web address to MySmartCoPilot’s server, which reads only the page’s head and returns its citation details. The page is never stored; its details are kept for up to 24 hours under a hash of the address. Your reference list is saved only in this browser.
Frequently asked questions
How many authors do I list in Vancouver style?
The ICMJE samples list the first six authors and then “et al.”; with six or fewer, list them all. Citing Medicine itself gives every author regardless of the number, and some journals cut the list at three — choose the rule your journal uses in the settings.
How do I cite in the text?
With the number the source has in your reference list, in the order you first cite each source: “as reported previously (3).” Many journals use superscripts³ or square brackets [3] instead — set this under Numbers in the text. A source cited again keeps its first number.
Where do I find the journal abbreviation?
In the NLM Catalog, or on the article’s PubMed page (it is the abbreviation shown before the date). Autofill from a PMID fills it in for you; for a DOI, the tool looks it up in the NLM Catalog.
Should I include the DOI and PMID?
They are optional notes in NLM’s samples — “doi: 10.1136/bmj.a2752. PubMed PMID: 19129307.” — and many journals ask for the DOI. Untick Add the DOI and the PubMed ID in the settings if yours does not want them.
Why does the reference say [place unknown]?
Citing Medicine requires the place of publication for books, reports and web sites, and writes [place unknown] or [publisher unknown] when they cannot be found. Add the city if the source shows it, or switch the placeholders off in the settings.
Is this an official NLM or ICMJE tool?
No. MySmartCoPilot is not affiliated with the National Library of Medicine or the ICMJE. The rules come from their published samples and Citing Medicine; follow your journal’s instructions for authors where they differ.