Referencing: Styles of Citation
Professors may specify the referencing style expected for their courses, or they may leave it up to you. From undergraduate days, you may be familiar with styles commonly used in the Humanities (MLA or Chicago, for example) or in social sciences (such as APA), but in the medical and health literature, two styles prevail.
The following summary of these styles of citation is taken from Health Policy & Planning's guidelines for authors at http://heapol.oupjournals.org/misc/ifora.shtml.
Referencing may be either by author/date (Harvard) or by numbers (Vancouver system), but the format chosen must be used consistently throughout the article. The style of the reference list varies between the two systems, but in both cases, the following details must be included in a reference to a journal article: the surnames and initials of all authors when six or less (when seven or more, list three and add et al), title of article, name of journal abbreviated according to Index Medicus style, year, volume, first and last page numbers. For books, names and initials of all authors, the full title, place of publication, publisher, year of publication and page number should be included. Examples of the style for the two systems are shown below.
Vancouver system
References should be numbered sequentially in the text, with a number being inserted above the line on each occasion a reference is cited. In the reference list, entries should appear like this:
2 Ganapati R, Naik SS, Acharekar MY, Pade SS. Leprosy endemicity in Bombay: an assessment through surveys of municipal schools. Lepr Rev. 1976; 43: 127-31.
4 Abrams C. Housing in the modern world: man's struggle for shelter. London: Faber Editions, 1969: 185.
For more details of the Vancouver style, see the Uniform Requirements of Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals at http://www.icmje.org/.
Author/Date (Harvard) system
In the text the author's name and the date of publication are quoted, e.g. 'as confirmed by Abrams (1969)' or 'as confirmed in another study (Abrams 1969)'. Reference list entries are as follows:
Ganapati R, Naik SS, Acharekar MY, Pade SS 1976 Leprosy endemicity in Bombay: an assessment through surveys of municipal schools. Lepr Rev 47: 127-31
Abrams C 1969 Housing in the modern world: man's struggle for shelter. London: Faber Editions, p. 165.
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Different journals interpret these guidelines somewhat differently. Most put initial letters of words in titles of books in upper case, for example, and some italicize journal and book titles. If you choose one of the variations, use it consistently. Following are sample reference lists from The Lancet (Vancouver) and Social Science and Medicine (Author/Date).
