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.

There are 2 aspects to this:

  1. If you're using an electronic resource such as an article from a full-text database (e.g. Nexis UK to access newspapers), and page numbers are not given it is usual to give an estimation of length - this can be number of screens [n screens], an approximation of pages [about n p] or paragraphs [about n paragraphs].

    Morse SS. Factors in the emergence of infectious diseases. Emerg Infect Dis [Internet]. 1995 Jan-Mar [cited 2007 Jul 9];1(1):[24 screens]. Available from http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol1no1/downmors.htm

  2. For printed material citing Medicine offers the following advice:

    "If only the particular contribution to be cited has no page numbers, identify the location in relation to numbered pages. For example: preceding p. 17 or following p. 503. Place such phrases in square brackets. [preceding p. 55]. [following p. 84].

    If the entire book has no page numbers, give the total number of pages of the contribution, placed in square brackets, such as [5 p.]."