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MLA to Vancouver converter

Paste MLA references, get Vancouver. Free, no sign-up.

Paste references written in MLA and get them back in Vancouver, ready to copy into Word or Google Docs. The main changes: author–page in-text citations become numbered citations, your “Works Cited” list becomes “References” and titles switch to sentence case. CiteSwap looks each reference up in the open Crossref catalogue, so authors, years and page numbers come from the publisher’s record rather than being rewritten by hand.

MLA vs Vancouver: the same sources side by side

Each example below was formatted by CiteSwap’s engine, exactly as the converter outputs it.

Journal article

MLA

Suri, Tavneet, and William Jack. “The Long-Run Poverty and Gender Impacts of Mobile Money.” Science, vol. 354, no. 6317, Dec. 2016, pp. 1288–92, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aah5309.

In-text: (Suri and Jack 1290)

Vancouver

Suri T, Jack W. The long-run poverty and gender impacts of mobile money. Science. 2016 Dec 9;354(6317):1288–92. doi:10.1126/science.aah5309

In-text: (1)

Book

MLA

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Heinemann, 1958.

In-text: (Achebe 1290)

Vancouver

Achebe C. Things fall apart. London: Heinemann; 1958.

In-text: (1)

Web page

MLA

World Health Organization. Malaria. 4 Dec. 2023, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria.

In-text: (World Health Organization 1290)

Vancouver

World Health Organization. Malaria [Internet]. 2023 [cited 2026 Oct 1]. Available from: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria

In-text: (1)

Key differences between MLA and Vancouver

12 of 12 rules differ; they are listed first.

RuleMLAVancouver
Reference list headingWorks CitedReferences
In-text citationsauthor and page number in parentheses with no comma, e.g. (Suri and Jack 1290)a number in round brackets, square brackets or superscript, e.g. (1), in the order sources are first cited
List orderAlphabetical by first author’s surnameNumbered in the order of first citation
Author namesFirst author inverted with full names, the second in normal order, e.g. Suri, Tavneet, and William JackSurname and initials without full stops, e.g. Suri T, Jack W
Many authorsThree or more authors: first author followed by “et al.”Seven or more authors: first six followed by “et al.”
DateNear the end, after the journal or publisher detailsAfter the journal name, with abbreviated month: 2016 Dec;354(6317):1288–92
Title capitalisationTitle caseSentence case
Article titlesIn quotation marks, title casePlain text, sentence case
ItalicsContainers: journal, website and book titlesNothing: titles and journal names are plain text
Journal namesFull journal name in title case, followed by vol. and no.Abbreviated journal name (NLM abbreviations), not italic
Page rangesShortened range with “pp.”, e.g. pp. 1288–92Shortened range, e.g. 1288–92
DOIs and linksDOI written as https://doi.org/… at the end; URLs without “https://” are also accepted“Available from:” before URLs, “[cited date]” for web pages, “doi:” for DOIs

When to use Vancouver

Vancouver is the standard numbered style in medicine, nursing, dentistry and biomedical sciences, especially at UK, Australian and African universities. It is published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, following the US National Library of Medicine; CiteSwap follows the NLM Citing Medicine, 2nd edition.

MLA is more common in literature, languages, cultural studies, while Vancouver is usual in medicine, nursing, dentistry. If your department or journal names a style, always follow it.

MLA to Vancouver: frequently asked questions

How do I convert MLA citations to Vancouver?

Paste your MLA reference list into the box above (one reference per line, numbered, or separated by blank lines), check that “From” says MLA or Auto-detect and “To” says Vancouver, then press Convert. You can also paste DOIs, BibTeX or RIS. Copy the result or download it for Word.

How do in-text citations change from MLA to Vancouver?

MLA uses author and page number in parentheses with no comma, e.g. (Suri and Jack 1290). Vancouver uses a number in round brackets, square brackets or superscript, e.g. (1), in the order sources are first cited. For the same article and page: MLA gives (Suri and Jack 1290), Vancouver gives (1).

What is the reference list called in Vancouver?

In MLA the list is headed “Works Cited”; in Vancouver it is “References”. Change the heading when you paste the converted list into your document.

Does the order of my references change in Vancouver?

Yes. MLA: alphabetical by first author’s surname. Vancouver: numbered in the order of first citation. CiteSwap keeps the order you pasted, so paste them in the order you first cite them.

Do titles need different capitalisation in Vancouver?

Yes. Vancouver uses sentence case, capitalising only the first word, the first word after a colon and proper nouns. CiteSwap keeps titles as the publisher’s record has them, so check that capitals on ordinary words are lowered, because catalogues often store titles in title case.

Is the MLA to Vancouver converter accurate?

Each reference is matched against the Crossref catalogue (over 150 million records) and only accepted automatically when the title, year and first author agree. Anything uncertain is marked “Needs review” so you can pick the right match, and references that aren’t in the catalogue, like websites or local journals, are parsed from your text and marked so you can check them.