Skip to Main Content

AMA Citation Style: AMA Formatting Tips

This guide provides a brief overview of using the AMA format and using ZoteroBib to generate a bibliography.

Using the AMA Citation Style

General Rules for AMA Citation Style

  • Items are listed numerically in the Reference List in the order they are cited in the text
  • Include up to 6 authors in a reference
    • If there are more than 6 authors, list the first 3 authors, followed by et al.

In Text Citations (See p. 64 3.6 in AMA Manual of Style 11th ed)
In text citations are formatted very differently as compared to the APA style; numbers are used within the text instead of the author, year.

  • Cited works within the manuscript are numbered in order of appearance; they appear in the Reference List in numerical order.
  • Use arabic superscript numerals outside periods and commas, and inside colons and semi-colons. For example:
    • As reported previously, 1, 3-5
    • The results were as follows 6 :

Journal Title Abbreviations (See p. 71-72 3.11.2 in AMA Manual of Style 11th ed)

For reference lists, abbreviate the journal name according to the listing in the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Catalog: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals Enter the title of the journal in the search box.

For example, the official NLM Title Abbreviation for the  Journal of Diagnostic Medical Sonography: JDMS is J Diagn Med Sonogr