The Science of Citations

Behold the citation! The scientists’ code language for sharing and documenting prior research!

Creating citations is not trivial. There are many styles for different purposes and all have a well-developed and comprehensive set of rules that define their use.

Citation styles for different areas of study:

+ MLA (Modern Language Association)
+ ACS (American Chemical Society)
+ IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
+ NLM (National Library of Medicine)
+ AAA (American Anthropological Association)
+ APA (American Psychological Association)
+ APSA (American Political Science Association)

In the biological sciences, we typically use the Vancouver style. This format specifies standardized referencing for journal articles, books, Digital Object Identification (DOI), URLs, newspapers and other document sources.

While Microsoft Word has a nice list of citation styles built in, Vancouver is not one of them, so you’ll have to format them manually.

Below you’ll find a few resources for creating Vancouver style citations:
Citing Medicine
University of Sussex
Monash University

Also, here is a link to a Quick reference guide to Vancouver citing and referencing style (PDF 534KB) from Monash University: Vancouver_condensed_guide_2015

Here is a quick reference to reading a citation:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy citing!