AMA 10th Referencing Guide: Getting Started

Please note:  The Skeleton Guide is a brief version of the guide for quick reference.  See the other pages on this guide for more comprehensive information.

AMA (Vancouver) Skeleton Guide for JCU students

The following guidelines are based on the minimum requirements for AMA citations.  AMA style requires this core information for each citation (additional details can be added where appropriate – see the relevant pages in the full JCU AMA guide).

Pay close attention to the punctuation use in these examples – including case, italics, the order of dates and spaces.

Journals

1. Author(s). Article title. Journal Abbreviation. Year;vol(issue no.):inclusive pages. DOI or URL [if online]. Accessed date [only if using URL].

Examples:

1. Economopoulos KJ, Brockmeier SF. Rotator cuff tears in overhead athletes. Clin Sports Med. 2012;31(4):675-692.
2. Lenza M, Buchbinder R, Christensen R, Hanchard Nigel CA, Faloppa F. Magnetic resonance imaging versus ultrasonography for assessing rotator cuff tears in patients with shoulder pain for whom surgery is being considered. Cochrane Database of Syst Rev. 2011;(3):CD009020. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD009020.
3. Finnan RP, Crosby LA. Partial-thickness rotator cuff tears. J Shoulder Elbow Surg. 2010;19(4):609-616. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1058274609004662. Accessed April 26, 2012.

Books (whole book)

1. Author(s) or Editor(s) [if editors, include ed or eds]. Book Title. Edition number [if not the first edition]. City, State [if American] or Country of publisher: Publisher’s name; Copyright year. DOI or URL [if online]. Accessed date [only if using URL].

Examples:

1. Laccetti MS, Kazanowski MK. Pain Management. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers; 2009.
2. Vadivelu N, Urman RD, Hines RL, eds. Essentials of Pain Management. New York, NY: Springer New York; 2011. doi:10.1007/978-0-387-87579-8_2.

Book chapter

1. Author(s) of chapter. Title of chapter. In: Editor(s), ed. or eds. Title of Book. Edition number [if not the first edition]. City, State [if American] or Country of publisher: Publisher’s name; Copyright year:inclusive pages. DOI or URL [if online]. Accessed date [only if using URL].

Examples:

1. Dog TL. Botanicals in the management of pain. In: Audette JF, Bailey A, eds. Contemporary Pain Medicine: Integrative Pain Medicine: the Science and Practice of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Pain Management. Totowa, NJ: Humana Press; 2008:447-470.
2. Shaparin N, Shah A, Gritsenko K. Pharmacological agents: opioids. In: Urman RD, Vadivelu N, eds. Perioperative Pain Management. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press; 2013:29-37. http://jcu.eblib.com.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=1274300. Accessed November 25, 2012.
3. Fikremariam D, Serafini M. Multidisciplinary approach to pain management. In: Vadivelu N, Urman RD, Hines RL, eds. Essentials of Pain Management. New York, NY: Springer New York; 2011:17-28. doi:10.1007/978-0-387-87579-8_2.

Web pages

1. Author(s) [or organisation responsible for the site]. Title of page or object. Name of website. URL. Published [or Updated] date [at least the year, if available]. Accessed date.

Examples:

1. State Government of Victoria. Anaphylaxis. Better Health Channel. http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Anaphylaxis. Updated July 16, 2013. Accessed January 8, 2014.
2. Queensland Health. Food safety fact sheet 51: Food allergies. Queensland Health website. http://www.health.qld.gov.au/foodsafety/Documents/fs-51-allergies.pdf. Published 2013. Accessed January 12, 2014.

AMA Style is a variation of the Vancouver system that is used by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and other publications by the AMA.  We are currently following the 10th edition of the AMA style guide.

AMA is a documentary-note style, which means you put a number in your text to cite sources of information and the reference list is in numerical order.

In text citations are in superscript¹ and in order of citation (the first citation is 1 the next is 2).  If you use the same source again, you keep the same number (the source you used for the first citation is always 1, even if you use it again after 6).

See the page on In Text Numbering for more detail.

If you are using EndNote, you can use the JAMA style, but we have created a style to avoid some problems with that style.  See the information on this page: AMA and EndNote.

General Notes:

• The major parts of a reference are Authors. Title of part. Title of Whole. Publication details (including copyright/publication year). Online details.  Each section is separated by a full stop.
• The authors follow the pattern of Surname Initials (e.g. Brown JA) and are separated by a comma.
  • If there are more than six authors, only list the first three names, then shorten with et al (e.g. Smith AA, Jones BA, Bloggs JC, et al.)
• The title of the part (journal article, book chapter or web object) is always in sentence case and not in italics.
• The title of the whole (book or journal) is usually in Title Case and in italics - except for web sites and unpublished material.
• The publication details change for the type of source you are citing (journal article, book chapter, etc).  See the full details in the guide for more information.
• Online details:  with electronic sources, you always use the DOI if you have one.  If not, use a URL if it is relevant.
• If you use a URL, you must include an Accessed date.

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