McGovern Library: Athletic Training: AMA Citations

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Purdue Online Writing Lab: AMA Style Guide
Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL) provides writing resources and instructional materials for writing projects. The AMA Style Guide includes an introduction to the style, citation formatting for various sources, formatting for in-text citations and reference lists, and more.

AMA Manual of Style
Publication Date: 2020

Find a Journal Abbreviation

To search and find the abbreviated journal title, search the Journal Title's Name or the ISSN.

Visit the NLM Catalog

About AMA (American Medical Association) Style

The AMA citation style was developed by the American Medical Association for the purpose of writing medical research. Athletic Training majors use this citation style.

Always check with your professor to determine which citation style you should use before beginning your paper or project.

Learn more about creating citations by visiting
the library's the Citing Sources guide.

Formatting Examples

Before you start creating your citations, you will need to identify:

Author(s)
Title of the Work
Publisher Information
Date of Publication or Creation

Rules for the Reference List

References are found at the end of a manuscript and are titled “Reference List".
Each item should be listed in numerical order (two references should not be combined under a single reference number) as opposed to alphabetically.
Each item should be single-spaced.
Author Information:
- List author's names as last name and the initials of their first and middle names.
- Separate author names with commas.
- Do not use periods between initials.
- If there are six authors or fewer, list all authors.
- If there are seven or more authors, list the first three and then abbreviate with et al.
Journal titles must be abbreviated using the National Library of Medicine abbreviations' catalog.
Each reference is divided with periods into bibliographic groups, and each bibliographic group contains bibliographic elements, which may be separated using the following punctuation marks:
- Comma: if the items are sub-elements of a bibliographic element or a set of closely related elements (e.g., the authors’ names).
- Semicolon: if the elements in the bibliographic group are different (e.g., between the publisher’s name and the copyright year) or if there are multiple occurrences of logically related elements within a group; also, before volume identification data.
- Colon: before the publisher’s name, between the title and the subtitle, and after a connective phrase (e.g., “In,” “Presented at”).

Within the text of a publication, individual references are presented in an abbreviated format that refers back to the list. These abbreviated references within the text are called in-text references.

General guidelines for in-text citations:

References should be numbered consecutively with superscript Arabic numerals in the order in which they are cited in the text.
If a reference is used multiple times in one document, use the same number throughout the document.
Reference numbers appear outside periods and commas and inside colons and semi-colons.
If appropriate, you may use the author name(s) within the citing paragraph.

	Example	Additional Notes
Sentence with Multiple Citations	Chocolate has many potential health benefits such as improved blood flow,¹ mood,² and brain function.³
Sentence Citing Two Sources Together	Two studies^3,4 have shown that chocolate can lead to improved brain function.	When citing 2 references at a given place in the manuscript, use a comma without a space to cite both references.
Sentence Citing Three or More Sources Together	Multiple studies^5-7have shown that chocolate can lead to optimism.	When citing >3 references at a given place in the manuscript, use hyphens to join the first and last numbers of a closed series.
Sentence Citing Reference with One Author	According to Brennan,¹ chocolate significantly improves blood flow.	When citing a reference that only has one author, then list one author's name.
Sentence Citing Reference with Two Authors	According to Barbato and Guisto,² chocolate significantly improves mood.	When citing a reference that has two authors, then list both authors' names.
Sentence Citing Reference with Three or More Authors	According to Dupra et al,³ chocolate significantly improves brain function.	When citing a reference that has three or more authors, then list the first author’s surname and et al.

Source: "American Medical Association (AMA) Citation Style" from the Medical University of South Carolina

Author Information

Use the author’s surname followed by initials without periods.
Names of all authors should be given unless there are more than 6, in which case the names of the first 3 authors are used followed by “et al.”
Roman numerals and abbreviations for Junior (Jr) and Senior (Sr) follow authors’ initials.
The JAMA Network journals prefer II, III, and IV, unless the author prefers arabic numerals.

One Author	Doe JF
Two Authors	Doe JF, Roe JP III
Six Authors	Joe JF, Roe JP III, Coe RT Jr, Loe JT Sr, Poe EA, van Voe AE
Seven or More Authors	Joe JF, Roe JP III, Coe RT Jr, et al.
One Author for a Group One Author and a Group	Doe JF; Laser ROP Study Group
More than Six Authors for a Group More than Six Authors and a Group	Joe JF, Roe JP III, Coe RT Jr, et al.; Laser ROP Study Group
Group	Laser ROP Study Group

Title and Subtitle Information

In titles of articles, books, parts of books, and other material, retain the spelling, abbreviations, and style for numbers used in the original.

Do not enclose article and book chapter titles in quotation marks. However, if a book, book chapter, or article title contains quotation marks in the original, retain them as double quotation marks (unless both double and single quotation marks are used).

In English-language titles:

Italicize the titles of books, government bulletins, documents, and pamphlets
Capitalize
- The first letter of each major word
- Proper names
- Names of clinical trials or study groups (eg, Community health worker home visits for adults with uncontrolled asthma: the HomeBASE Trial randomized clinical trial)
- Abbreviations that are ordinarily capitalized (eg, DNA, EEG, VDRL)
- Two-letter verbs (Is, Be)
Do not capitalize
- Articles, prepositions of 3 or fewer letters (as, off, out, per, up, via)
- Coordinating conjunctions (and, or, for, nor, but, yet, so)

Subtitles

Style for subtitles follows that for titles for spelling, abbreviations, numbers, capitalization, and use of italics, except that for journal articles the subtitle begins with a lowercase letter.

Non English Titles

Non-English titles may be given as they originally appeared, without translation.

If non–English-language titles are translated into English, indication of the original language should follow the title.

Example: Shimura M. Looking to the future: treatment for retinal vascular disease. Article in Japanese. Nippon Ganka Gakkai Zasshi. 2014;118(11):905-906.

If the non–English-language title and the translation are provided, both may be given. In the example below, the article was published in 3 languages, and all translations are provided.

Example: Becerra-Posada F, Hennis A, Lutter C. Prevention of childhood obesity through trilateral cooperation. Prevención de la obesidad infantil a través de una cooperación trilateral. Prévention de l’obésité infantile grâce à la coopération trilatérale. Rev Panam Salud Publica. 2016;40(2):76-77.

Basic Form, Author

Author AA. Title of Book. Edition number (only include if beyond first). Publisher name; year of publication.

Basic Form, Author

Editor AA, ed. Title of Book. Edition number (only include if beyond first). Publisher name; year of publication.

One Author

Dorland WAN. Dorland’s illustrated medical dictionary. 31st ed. Saunders Elsevier; 2007.

More than 6 Editors, Edition Included

Alldredge BK, Corelli RL, Ernst ME, et al., eds. Koda-Kimble and young’s applied therapeutics: the clinical use of drugs. 10th ed. Lippincott Williams and Wilkins; 2013.

Basic Form, Single Chapter in Edited Book

Author(s) of chapter. Title of Chapter. Editor(s) of chapter, eds. Title of Book. Edition number (only include if beyond first). Publisher name; year of publication.

Chapter has Two Authors, Book has Three Editors

Relling MV, Giacomini KM. Pharmacogenomics. In: Brunton LL, Chabner BA, Knollmann BC, eds. Goodman and gilman’s the pharmacological basis of therapeutics. 12th ed. McGraw-Hill; 2011: 145-168.

Basic Form for Print Journal Article

Author AA. Title of article. Abbreviated Title of Journal. Year of publication;volume(issue):complete page numbers.

Basic Form for Online Journal Article

Author AA. Title of article. Abbreviated Title of Journal. Year of publication;volume(issue):page numbers/article number. DOI.

Journal Article with 3 Authors

Huang W, Lee SL, Lu LX. Mechanistic approaches to predicting oral drug absorption. AAPS J. 2009;11(2):217-224. doi: 10.1208/s12248-009-9098-z

Journal Article with 10 Authors, No DOI

Harrison JJ, Wang J, Cervenko J, et al. Pilot study of a pharmaceutical care intervention in an outpatient lung transplant clinic. Clin Transplant. 2012;26(2):E149-157.

Basic Form

Author(s). Title of the specific item cited (if none is given, use the name of the organization responsible for the site). Name of the website. Published date. Updated date. Accessed date. URL.

Website with No Named Author, No Publication or Update Dates

Compound summary for CID 146571: Escitalopram Oxalate. PubChem Compound Database. Accessed April 16, 2016. https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/146571

Website with No Group Author, Publication Date Included

American Heart Association. Is vaping better than smoking? American Heart Association website. Updated October 18, 2018. Accessed April 15, 2020. https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-lifestyle/quitsmoking-tobacco/is-vaping-safer-than-smoking