Vancouver citation style renamed
Several “Vancouver” citation styles have recently been renamed and, accordingly, will be listed under these new names in SmartCite. Please see the table below for more information, including the name under which you can now find your “Vancouver” style of choice:
Note: “…” indicates a repeat of the words “NLM Style Guide (Vancouver): Citing Medicine 2nd edition (citation-sequence)”
| (Old name) | (New name) | What changed | Best search keywords in SmartCite |
| Vancouver | NLM Style Guide (Vancouver): Citing Medicine 2nd edition (citation-sequence) | Mostly a rename/clarification: “Vancouver” is treated as a family of styles; NLM/Citing Medicine is one common concrete spec. | NLM Style Guide (Vancouver) / Citing Medicine / citation-sequence |
| Vancouver brackets / Vancouver (number in brackets) | … (citation-sequence, brackets) | Same formatting intent; brackets is now spelled out as a variant. | NLM Style Guide (Vancouver) + brackets |
| Vancouver superscript | … (citation-sequence, superscript) | Same formatting intent; superscript is now spelled out as a variant. | NLM Style Guide (Vancouver) + superscript |
| Vancouver superscript, brackets | … (citation-sequence, superscript, brackets) | Now expressed as explicit combined variant. | NLM Style Guide (Vancouver) + superscript + brackets |
| Vancouver brackets, only year in date | … (citation-sequence, brackets, year-only dates) | Date formatting flag is now explicit in the name. | NLM Style Guide (Vancouver) + brackets + year-only |
| Vancouver superscript, only year in date | … (citation-sequence, superscript, year-only dates) | Same as above, but superscript variant. | NLM Style Guide (Vancouver) + superscript + year-only |
| Vancouver brackets, … no issue numbers | … (citation-sequence, brackets, …, no issue numbers) | Issue-number suppression is now explicit in the name. | NLM Style Guide (Vancouver) + no issue |
| Vancouver superscript, … no issue numbers | … (citation-sequence, superscript, …, no issue numbers) | Same, but superscript variant. | NLM Style Guide (Vancouver) + no issue + superscript |
| Vancouver brackets, no “et al.” | … (citation-sequence, brackets, …, no “et al.”) | “No et al.” behavior is now explicit in the name. (Exact wording may vary slightly by provider’s style list.) | NLM Style Guide (Vancouver) + no et al |
| Vancouver (citation-name) / Vancouver (author named in-text + number) | … (citation-name) | CSL distinguishes citation-name vs citation-sequence systems; name now reflects that. | NLM Style Guide (Vancouver) + citation-name |
| Vancouver (name-year) | … (name-year) | This is a different member of the “Vancouver system” family. | NLM Style Guide (Vancouver) + name-year |
| Any journal/house style that used to start with “Vancouver …” | Often becomes “… NLM Style Guide (Vancouver) …” inside the title | The upstream rationale is to stop presenting “Vancouver” as a single monolithic style name. | Search journal name plus NLM or Vancouver |
Updated on January 30, 2026
