bibliottVancouver Citation Guide — NLM 2nd edition
Vancouver NLM 2nd edition format, rules, and copy-ready examples. Built for biomedical, medical, public health. Auto-generation for Vancouver is on the way.
bibliott's generator currently supports APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard & Turabian. Vancouver auto-generation is coming soon — use the format and examples below in the meantime.
What is Vancouver NLM 2nd edition?
Vancouver is the citation style mandated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and is required by virtually all biomedical and clinical journals indexed in PubMed/MEDLINE. It is a numbered style very similar in spirit to IEEE but with biomedical conventions.
When to use Vancouver
- Medical school papers and clinical research
- Public health and epidemiology coursework
- Pharmacology, dentistry, and veterinary writing
- Manuscripts for journals that follow ICMJE recommendations
Vancouver quick reference
In-text citation
Numbered citation in parentheses or superscript depending on journal: (1) or ¹.
A recent meta-analysis (1) confirmed the effect.
References (numbered in order of citation)
#. Author AA, Author BB. Article title. Journal Abbreviation. Year;Volume(Issue):pages.
1. Smith JD, Lee AR. The future of artificial intelligence in academic research. Nat Mach Intell. 2023;5(3):234–245.
#. Author AA. Book title. Edition. Place: Publisher; Year.
2. Brown P. Citation in the digital age. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2021.
#. Organization. Title [Internet]. Place: Publisher; Year [cited Year Mon Day]. Available from: URL
3. World Health Organization. Mental health: strengthening our response [Internet]. Geneva: WHO; 2024 [cited 2024 May 7]. Available from: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-health
Key Vancouver formatting rules
- List all authors up to 6; for 7+ list the first 6 then "et al."
- Use NLM journal abbreviations (PubMed Journals catalog) — no italics.
- No "p." or "pp." before page numbers.
- For online medical sources, always include the [cited] access date.
- Volume(Issue):pages is one unit with no spaces around colons.
Other citation styles
Vancouver FAQ
Effectively yes — Vancouver style is the ICMJE recommendations on citation. Most biomedical journals say "follow ICMJE/Vancouver" in their submission guidelines.
Both are valid; the choice is determined by the target journal. JAMA uses superscript; BMJ uses parentheses. bibliott lets you switch with one click.
Cite the trial as the source: Trial title. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCTxxxxxxxx. URL. We auto-detect ClinicalTrials.gov URLs and format them correctly.