Vancouver Guidelines

There are many different referencing styles that are used in the academic and research environment. They offer the user guidelines to follow and formatting rules to ensure that writing is consistent. Some examples APA, the American Psychological Association, often used in education and psychology, Chicago, used by business and history, and Vancouver, a numerical style used in medical disciplines.

History

Vancouver guidelines for publishing were established in 1978 by a group of editors meeting in Vancouver Canada. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICJME) has incorporated these guidelines along with ethical principles into publishing recommendations.

They are now referred to as Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals or Uniform requirements.

Vancouver style also incorporates a style of referencing that uses numbered in text citations, with a sequentially numbered reference list at the end of the paper.

Purpose?

It provides best practice and ethical standards for research published in medical journals. This assists those involved in the peer review process to create accurate and unbiased journal articles. It can also be referred to a referencing style that gives specific instructions for in text numbering of references and tables with a final reference page.

Over 1000 medical journals use this style and follow the recommendations. The recommendations are usually incorporated into their instructions for authors.

Who is an author?

Authors must take responsibility and be accountable for their work.

There are 4 criteria, and authors should meet all four.

Must make a substantial contribution
Must have drafted the work or contributed to critical revision
Must give final approval to the work to be published
Must be accountable for all aspects of the work

The corresponding author is the individual who takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process,

Those whose contributions do not justify authorship may be acknowledged individually or together as a group

Roles and Responsibilities of authors, reviewers, editors, publishers

All parties have a duty to disclose any conflicts of interest, and any financial or non-financial relationships that might affect the credibility of the article. It is important that professional judgement not be influenced by any secondary interest. Failure to disclose can be a form of misconduct.

Authors must seek approval from the relevant review body and ensure any research that involves human participants in in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration.

Publishing issues

Authors should not submit the same manuscript to more than one journal for publication and articles should not be republished. This creates an issue with which journal has the right to publish and also burdens the peer review process.

Preparing and submitting a manuscript

Follows general principles of IMRAD, the manuscript needs to be structured with a title page, abstract, introduction, methods, results including statistics, discussion and conclusion. The Vancouver referencing style numbers references sequentially, numbers tables for data, figures for illustrations and uses appropriate units of measurement, symbols and abbreviations.

When submitting the manuscript, it is sent with a cover letter that includes information on authorship, any disclosures and the contact information of the corresponding author

References

ICMJE | Recommendations | Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors [Internet]. Icmje.org. 2020 [cited 27 October 2020]. Available from: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html

LibGuides: Citation Style Guide: Vancouver 2nd Edition [Internet]. Dal.ca.libguides.com. 2020 [cited 28 October 2020]. Available from: https://dal.ca.libguides.com/CitationStyleGuide/Vancouver