Generate references in Vancouver style — the numbered ICMJE format of biomedical journals, known as Vancouver referencing at UK and Commonwealth universities — from a DOI, PubMed ID, PMCID, ISBN, arXiv ID, ISSN, ADS bibcode, or paper URL. NLM journal abbreviations, the year;volume(issue):pages block, and the first-six-then-et-al. author rule, resolved from the publisher’s own record.
Vancouver format · DOI, PMID, PMCID & ISBN input · Free, no signup
One identifier per line. We’ll resolve it and return a Vancouver-style reference. Nothing is stored.
0 / 2,000 characters
Resolving an identifier confirms the paper exists - it does not confirm the citations in your bibliography point to the right papers. The dominant AI-fabrication pattern is a real, resolvable DOI paired with an invented title. Audit your whole reference list for fabricated citations before you submit.
Each resolved identifier produces one reference in Vancouver format. The journal name comes back as its NLM abbreviation (N Engl J Med, not New England Journal of Medicine), and the numeric block follows the Vancouver pattern: year, semicolon, volume, issue in parentheses, colon, page range.
Input
Output
Polack FP, Thomas SJ, Kitchin N, Absalon J, Gurtman A, Lockhart S, et al. Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine. N Engl J Med. 2020;383(27):2603-2615. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2034577.
Note the Vancouver conventions: initials without periods, the first six authors followed by et al. (this paper has 29), the abbreviated journal title, and the lowercase doi: prefix at the end.
Vancouver style is the numbered reference format of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), named after the group’s founding 1978 meeting in Vancouver. It is codified in the ICMJE Recommendations and the National Library of Medicine’s Citing Medicine, and it is the reference format of PubMed/MEDLINE and the default at biomedical journals, medical schools, and nursing programs worldwide — including most that call it simply “Vancouver referencing”.
Vancouver is a numbered style: references appear in the reference list in the order they are first cited, and in-text citations are numbers in parentheses, square brackets, or superscript, depending on the journal. Journal titles are abbreviated per the National Library of Medicine (the same abbreviations PubMed uses), and DOIs are appended with a lowercase doi: prefix. For the closely related AMA format used by the JAMA journals, see the AMA Citation Generator; to see Vancouver next to APA, IEEE, or any other style for the same paper, use the Citation Style Comparator.
Reading the example above left to right, a Vancouver journal reference is built from these parts:
| Part | Example | Convention |
|---|---|---|
| Authors | Polack FP, Thomas SJ, Kitchin N, Absalon J, Gurtman A, Lockhart S, et al. | Surname + initials, no periods inside initials; first six listed, then et al. when seven or more |
| Article title | Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine | As the publisher registered it, followed by a period |
| Journal | N Engl J Med | NLM abbreviation, italicised in print |
| Year;Volume(Issue) | 2020;383(27) | Semicolon after the year, issue in parentheses |
| Pages | :2603-2615 | Full page range after a colon |
| DOI | doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2034577 | Lowercase doi: prefix, closing period |
Books work too: enter an ISBN and the reference comes back as authors, italicised title, publisher, year, and the ISBN.
.bib file with our DOI to BibTeX converter and pair it with the vancouverBibTeX bibliography style or the one your journal’s template specifies.This page uses the public API’s builtin Vancouver formatter. Send POST /api/format with style: "vancouver" and one or more identifiers in text; batch input returns one reference per line. The builtins ama, apa, ieee, and cse work the same way, and 10,000+ further styles are available by CSL id. See the API documentation.
Vancouver style is the numbered reference format of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), named after the group's founding 1978 meeting in Vancouver. It is codified in the ICMJE Recommendations and the National Library of Medicine's Citing Medicine, and it is the standard reference format for biomedical journals and PubMed/MEDLINE. References are numbered in the order they are first cited, and in-text citations are numbers in parentheses, square brackets, or superscript, depending on the journal.
Authors come first as surname plus initials with no punctuation inside the initials, then the article title, the NLM journal abbreviation, then year;volume(issue):pages, and finally the DOI with a lowercase doi: prefix — for example N Engl J Med. 2020;383(27):2603-2615. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2034577.
The generator follows the ICMJE/NLM rule: when a paper has six or fewer authors, every author is listed; when it has seven or more, the first six are listed followed by et al. This differs from AMA references, which list only the first three before et al. when a paper has seven or more authors.
They are close relatives but not identical. Both are numbered medical styles that abbreviate journal titles per the National Library of Medicine, and the year;volume(issue):pages block is the same. They differ on the author cutoff — Vancouver lists the first six before et al., AMA the first three — and journals differ in how the in-text numbers are typeset.
Yes. It uses the NLM (PubMed / Index Medicus) journal abbreviation carried on the registry record — New England Journal of Medicine becomes N Engl J Med. When a journal has no abbreviation on file, the full journal title is used instead.
Yes. Paste a PMID or PMCID and the tool resolves it via PubMed, then formats the record in Vancouver style. DOIs, ISBNs, arXiv IDs, ISSNs, and ADS bibcodes work the same way — enter one identifier per line to build a whole reference list at once.
Compare Vancouver output against other styles side by side with the Citation Style Comparator, or export the same references to a reference manager format.
This page is a front end for the public Scholar Sidekick API — the same Vancouver formatting runs over plain HTTP, so you can call it from a script, an AI agent, or your reference manager. Light use needs no key at all. A free account issues an ssk_ key that raises your rate limit.