NLM Vancouver: cite a journal article

The NLM article pattern

This page follows the journal-article category of NLM's Citing Medicine, the source usually meant by Vancouver style. The entry is plain text with no italics or quotation marks. The family name comes first, followed by the initials with no periods, then the article title, the journal abbreviation, and the year, volume, issue and pages written together. Your destination journal's instructions may set their own author limit or numbering, and the number 1 here is only illustrative.

Numbered 1, the article's NLM reference is: 1. Stone M. A small study. J Sample Stud. 2024;12(2):12-18.

The abbreviation is supplied, not generated

J Sample Stud is a fictional abbreviation, given as example data. The workbench prints the journal name exactly as you type it in Containing work or site and never shortens a title, so for a real journal you must take the abbreviation from an authoritative list or the journal itself. Do not invent one.

Entering the article

• Choose NLM Citing Medicine numbered reference, Journal article and Print version.
• Enter Maya Stone; the entry writes Stone M.
• Type A small study as Source title and Reviewed sentence-case title, and J Sample Stud as the container.
• Fill 2024, 12, 2 and 12-18. The page range keeps a plain hyphen in this style.
• Press Create reference.

Where this workbench stops

With more than six authors, the NLM case is held with Author details: this source form is outside the reviewed case set, because long-author variants are not reviewed. The Online version of a journal article is also held for NLM. A month is added after the year when you supply it, as in 2024 Jun, and a DOI is added at the end as doi: directly followed by the identifier. Longer page ranges are shortened, so 436-444 would become 436-44.

In the Citelle app this style is called Vancouver and is part of Pro. The app numbers entries in the order you added them, Copy in-text gives (1), and the journal name is printed as it came with the record, so check it against the abbreviation your journal requires.

Article points to verify

• Use the version of the article you actually read, print or online.
• Take the journal abbreviation from a reliable source.
• Check the issue and pages against the article's first page.
• Follow the destination journal for author limits and numbering.

Gather the source details

• Open the article or its publisher record.
• Record authors in the published order.
• Distinguish the article title from the journal title.
• Check volume, issue, pages or article number and any assigned DOI.

Author

Maya Stone

Title as supplied

A small study

Publication year

2024

Containing work or site

J Sample Stud

Volume

12

Journal issue

2

Published pages

12-18

Tools

• Open the reference workbench

Sources

• NLM Citing Medicine: Journal articles

Next guide: APA 7: cite a book