Website or Webpage

This is the Vancouver style for referencing, used at the Univerity of Portsmouth within the School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences and the Radiography departments.

This guide is modelled on Citing Medicine: The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers (2nd edition). You may wish to consult this source directly for additional information or examples.

This includes specific webpages and whole websites.

Use the webpage format if you are referring to a particular document or piece of information from a specific webpage within a website.

Use the website format only when referencing an entire website from the homepage onwards or if you are making a passing reference to a website in the text of your work.

Date of websites:

Always try to give the date a website first appeared if it can be found. Look at "about us" or "history" pages.

Follow this by revision date if there is one - e.g. [updated 2008 Feb 04]

Date of copyright is acceptable (preface with the c. For example, c2021 ) if no publication date can be found.

Still follow this with revision date information, if available.

If no date appears on the item you are trying to reference, insert [date unknown] where you would normally give the year.

Website

This page should only be used when referencing an entire website from the homepage onwards. When citing organizations that are national bodies such as government agencies, if a nationality is not part of the name, place the country in parentheses after the name, using the two-letter ISO country code

For example: Department of Health (GB).

When using an organisation as an author, omit "The". For example, The Society of Radiographers would become Society of Radiographers.

If you are referring to a specific page within a website, see referencing a Webpage

Reference

Author Initials/Organisation's name (if any). Title of the page [Internet]. Place of publication: Publisher; Date or year of publication [updated YYYY Mon DD; cited YYYY Mon DD]. Available from: URL

Examples

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Evidence search [Internet]. London: National Institute for Health and Care Excellence; c2021 [cited 2021 Jul 19]. Available from: https://www.evidence.nhs.uk/

Society of Radiographers. Welcome to our new site [Internet]. London: Society of Radiographers; c2021 [updated 2021 Apr; cited 2021 Jul 20]. Available from: https://www.sor.org/

National Library for Health. Your gateway to high quality health information [Internet]. London: NHS; c2021 [cited 2021 Jul 20]. Available from: http://www.library.nhs.uk

Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee [Internet]. Aylesbury: Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee; 2008 [cited 2008 Aug 28]. Available from: http://www.psnc.org.uk

In text citation / reference list

Remember this will be a running number at the first use of a reference. If the reference is re-used then repeat the number allocated.

Keep your style constant, either parenthesis (number) throughout, or superscript number. Do not change between the two. If your department recommends a particular style then use that.

Nice Evidence (16) is a resource the helps you to make evidence-based decisions ...

Nice Evidence ¹⁶ is a resource the helps you to make evidence-based decisions ...

Webpage

Before referencing your webpage, determine that the item you are quoting cannot be cited alone as an electronic book, journal article etc.

Make sure that the item you are quoting is not a homepage. If you are referencing a homepage or a whole website, see the referencing a website pages.

Webpages can be volatile and subject to unannounced change. Whenever possible the URL you give should be a stable URL and link directly to the webpage itself. A stable URL, also known as a 'permament link' is more likely to remain accessible. To check if a link to a URL is stable, paste the link into the address bar of an Internet browser to make sure that it works. If there is no stable URL for the item, give the homepage of the website.

When citing organizations that are national bodies such as government agencies, if a nationality is not part of the name, place the country in parentheses after the name, using the two-letter ISO country code

For example: Department of Health (GB).

Reference

Author Initials/Organisation's name (if any). Title of the page [Internet]. Place of publication: Publisher; Date or year of publication [updated YYYY Mon DD; cited YYYY Mon DD]. Available from: URL

Examples

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Clinical knowledge summaries: Anaemia - Iron deficiency: Drug Interactions. [Internet]. London: National Institute for Health and Care Excellence; c2021 [updated 2021 Apr; cited 2021 Jul 19]. Available from: https://cks.nice.org.uk/topics/anaemia-iron-deficiency/prescribing-information/drug-interactions/

Society of Radiographers. How the rise of AI-assisted CT will help transform clinical procedures & power radiology efficiencies [Internet]. London: Royal Society of Radiographers; c2020 [updated 2021 Jun 03; cited 2021 Jul 20]. Available from: https://www.sor.org/news/sponsored-content/canon-deep-intelligent-ct-scanners-with-ai

Diabetes UK. Diabetic Ketoacidosis [Internet]. London: Diabetes UK; c2008 [cited 2008 Oct 7]. Available from http://www.diabetes.org.uk/Guide-to-diabetes/Complications/Short_term_complications/Diabetic_Ketoacidosis/

NHS Choices. Hydronephrosis [Internet]. London: Department of Health; c2015 [updated 2015 Jun23; cited 2016 May 16]. Available from: http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Hydronephosis/Pages/Introduction.aspx.

In text citation / reference list

Remember this will be a running number at the first use of a reference. If the reference is re-used then repeat the number allocated.

Keep your style constant, either parenthesis (number) throughout, or ^superscript number. Do not change between the two. If your department recommends a particular style then use that.

The National Library for Health (16)

The National Library for Health¹⁶