Every attempt must be used to correctly identify the author, which may be a corporate body such as the NHS Executive, Department of Health, Welsh Office or National Assembly. Frequently, publications from these corporate bodies contain a foreword - the person who signs this is not necessarily the author of the document.
Author names
The rule in Citing Medicine is that no more than two initials should be given for an author. Many journals give all initials for authors, and you will find that most bibliographic software uses a similar approach with Vancouver style.
Multiple authors
The rule in Citing Medicine is to list all authors, regardless of number. Some journals apply a cut-off (usually around six authors or more) and your Department/College may follow the style of a particular journal or have its own preference. You must check carefully to see which rules you should apply.
Author name not given - Where no author/editor can be found, begin the reference with the title. Do not use Anonymous.
Multiple places of publication – Where more than one place is given, prefer the UK location if given; otherwise, use the first place mentioned.
Place of publication not given – If the place is not stated, but you can reasonably infer the location, enter the place in square brackets, e.g. [Cardiff]. Otherwise, use [place unknown]. Similarly, if the publisher cannot be found or inferred, use [publisher unknown].
Date of publication not given – If the date of copyright can be found, use that, and place a ‘c’ in front the date, e.g. c1955. If you are able to estimate or infer the date, enter the year followed by a ‘?’ in square brackets, e.g. [1999?]. If no date can be found or estimated, use [date unknown].