Create a spot-on reference in Vancouver
General rules
The manual of Vancouver Style – Citing Medicine – does not provide any recommendations for citing social media posts in a bibliography.
Taking into consideration the style’s specifics in terms of the rules for referencing websites and online videos, the web service Grafiati offers the following bibliographic reference template for a social media post in Vancouver Style:
Author. Website [Internet]. Post [Post type]; publication date [cited date cited]. Available from: URL
N.B.: Bearing in mind the practices of the other citation styles, it is reasonable to provide up to the first 20 words of the post in the Post element.
The above template makes it possible to identify clearly a post, its author, and location and to maintain a uniform presentation of the list of references.
The web service Grafiati allows citing social media posts online in Vancouver Style and in other citation formats. You can compile the bibliographic references to posts form Twitter, Tumblr, and TikTok in one click – simply by pasting the URL of a post; for the other social networks (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.), it suffices to fill in several fields.
Examples in a list of references
Kuenssberg L. Twitter [Internet]. Important leak to my colleague Jim tonight below - SAGE minutes suggest tougher restrictions needed before New Year if we're to [Tweet]; 2021 Dec 17 [cited 2021 Dec 18]. Available from: https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1471932874261770248
nhs.uk. Facebook [Internet]. Flu and COVID-19 can both be life-threatening and spread more easily in winter. If you have a long term health [Post]; 2021 Dec 11 [cited 2021 Dec 18]. Available from: https://www.facebook.com/NHSwebsite/photos/a.457711591542/10159898779381543