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AMA 11th Referencing Guide

Referencing guide for the 11th Edition of AMA Style

Journal Article

Use this format if:

  • You have an article in a publication that is produced on a regular basis (a "serial" publication), such as a journal or magazine.

You will need (minimum information in bold):

  • Author(s)
  • Article title (in sentence case - not in italics)
  • Journal Abbreviation (in italics, in Title Case)
  • Year
  • Volume number
  • Issue number
  • Part or supplement (if relevant)
  • Inclusive page numbers
  • Accessed date (if online - only if using URL)
  • DOI or URL (if online)

Standard article pattern (print):

Author AA, Author BB. Title of article. Journal Abbreviation. Year;volume(issue):pp-pp.

Examples:

  1. Chiang HC, Huang V, Cornelius LA. Cancer and itch. Semin Cutan Med Surg. 2011;30(2):107-112.
  2. Nejad AG, Kheradmand A. Five rare psychiatric syndromes co-occurring together. Neurosciences. 2009;14(1):91-3.
  3. Voigt C, Grasse P, Rex K, Hetz S, Speakman J. Bat breath reveals metabolic substrate use in free-ranging vampires. J Comp Physiol B. 2008;178(1):9-16.

Standard article pattern (electronic):

Author AA, Author BB. Title of article. Journal Abbreviation. Year;volume(issue):pp-pp. DOI

Author AA, Author BB. Title of article. Journal Abbreviation. Year;volume(issue):pp-pp. Accessed Month DD, YYYY. URL

Examples:

  1. Economopoulos KJ, Brockmeier SF. Rotator cuff tears in overhead athletes. Clin Sports Med. 2012;31(4):675-692. doi:10.1016/j.csm.2012.07.005
  2. Finnan RP, Crosby LA. Partial-thickness rotator cuff tears. J Shoulder Elbow Surg. 2010;19(4):609-616. Accessed April 26, 2012. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1058274609004662
  3. Ho DTN, Le TPT, Wolbers M, et al. Risk factors of Streptococcus suis infection in Vietnam: a case-control study. PLoS One. 2011;6(3):e17604. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0017604

Notes:

  • There are no spaces between the year, volume, issue number and page numbers.
  • Some online journals do not have page numbers. Use the article number instead. Reference 6 is an example.
  • If there is a DOI you should always include it at the end of the reference. 
  • You don't need to include a URL if there is a DOI, and you only need to include an Accessed date if you have used a URL.
  • There is no full stop after the DOI or URL

What's a DOI?  Read this explanation from Citing Medicine.

Journal abbreviations for AMA

Journal Abbreviations:

  • The Journal Abbreviations can be found by looking at the Journal Record in the NLM catalogue (PubMed).  If your title is not in the PubMed catalogue, the AMA Handbook offers advice for abbreviating journal titles in Chapter 13. For words that aren't in Chapter 13's list, you can look up the keywords from the title in the NMLA catalogue or the CASSI search tool to see how other titles with the same word have been abbreviated.
  • One word titles are never abbreviated, and the complete title can always be used if an abbreviation cannot be found.

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