Subject guides: Vancouver 2022: Other sources

Other sources

Media release

Format

Number. Organisation name. Release title. Media release, Publisher. Month Day, Year of publication. Accessed Month Day, Year. URL

Example

51. Department of Social Services. Faster Hospital Discharge for NDIS Participants. Media release, DSS. September 14, 2022. Accessed October 27, 2022. https://ministers.dss.gov.au/media-releases/9106

Personal communication includes materials such as emails from unarchived sources, private memos, or unrecorded interview conversations. Confidential material may include medical charts, patient health records, and other internal reports containing private information. As these sources do not provide recoverable data or access to the data is restricted due to confidentiality, they are cited in-text only; do not include an entry in the reference list.

Obtain permission from the source before citing personal communications or information from a confidential document
To establish the relevance and authority of the communication, include the highest academic degree or the professional affiliation of the person being cited

In-text citation

Rule

The citation must include the name of the person communicating, their qualifications or affiliations, the type of communication, and the date.

Example

In email correspondence, it was confirmed that previously detected inconsistencies had been resolved (L.Thomas, MD, email communication, February 8, 2021).

… there was no acute infarct seen (P. Wong, MBBS, radiology report, March 6, 2022).

According to the manufacturer (H. E. Lim, PhD, Pharma Global, internal company document, June 23, 2022), the immunisation will...

In a letter from M. Smith, MD on February 8, 2020, it was suggested...

The AMA Manual of Style Chapter 3.13.10 has further details about personal communications. Unpublished, confidential reports should be treated similarly. Do not confuse these types of materials with unpublished materials mentioned previously in Chapter 3.13.9.

Decorative images in a PowerPoint presentation or poster

Decorative images in a PowerPoint or poster don’t need a title or figure number but copyright material must be attributed to the source. Cite the source of the image in the caption with the number of the source in the reference list. Follow the usual format for the type of source (eg webpage).

Caption

Format

Source: Author¹ or Author [1]

Example

Source: Runn¹ or Runn [1]

Tips

To find out if an image is copyrighted material you need to find the original image. If you found the image on a website try a Google reverse image search and look for results from image libraries.
Creative Commons images are copyright free but often still require attribution depending on the particular Creative Commons licence used.
Clip Art and stock images from programs like Microsoft Powerpoint don’t need attribution because by purchasing the program you have obtained a licence to use the clip art and stock images that come with the program without attribution.