Vancouver Examples - Getting started - In-text citation

The in-text citation is the first part of your reference. You must include an in-text citation every time you quote, paraphrase or summarize somebody else's words or ideas - that includes images, information from the internet, and even tweets!

What to include

In Vancouver style, in-text citations are numbered consecutively in the order in which they appear in your assignment, starting at 1. When you add a citation into your document you need to:

• place a superscript number at the end of the information you are citing
• place these numbers after full stops and commas, and before colons and semicolons
• once a source has been cited, use the same number when citing that source again
• when multiple references are cited:
• use a hyphen to join inclusive numbers, e.g. As discussed above^2-5
• use commas (without spaces) to separate non-inclusive numbers, e.g. As discussed above^1,3,7,9 there are…

Page numbers

You may provide a page number to pinpoint where specific information came from in the source, such as for a direct quote.

• Place the page number in brackets directly next to the source number, preceded by a 'p' or 'pp' (for multiple pages) with no spaces.
• A hyphen is used for consecutive pages, and commas for non-consecutive numbers, in the same way as for multiple references.

Exceptions

Some reference types have slightly different in-text citations. We include the in-text citation in the example for that type, see:

• Creative works - Image
• Data - Table
• Maps/diagrams etc. - Figure
• QUT resources and personal communications - Personal communication