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AMA Citations: Reference List

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Purdue Online Writing Lab: APA 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 

 

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

Reference List Information

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.