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AMA Citation Style: Format Paper

General Formatting Rules

AMA Style Citation Tips

Tips: References List 3.2

  • Cited works are numbered in order of initial appearance in the text and appear in the Reference List in numerical order.
  • Use Arabic superscript numerals outside periods and commas, and inside colons and semicolons.
  • Authors’ names are inverted and use only initials for first and middle names. No periods between initials.  (Example - Antosh, MA)
  • In article titles, only capitalize the first word, proper nouns, and abbreviations that are ordinarily capitalized.
  • Use accepted Index Medicus abbreviations of journal names (see the List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus).
  • For journals, use issue numbers in parentheses after the volume number. If there is no issue number specify the month before the year.

Tips: Titles 3.9

  • In titles of articles, books, parts of books, and other material, retain the spelling, abbreviations, and style for numbers used in the original. 
  • Numbers that begin a title are spelled out (although exceptions are made for years; see 2.1.2, Manuscript Preparation, Titles and Subtitles, Numbers).

Tips: Numbering 3.5

  • References should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals in the order in which they are cited in the text. 
  • Two references should not be combined under a single reference number.

Tips: Reference Given In text 3.3

  • In the text, the author(s) may not be named,
  • The title may not be given,
  • The name of the journal is abbreviated only when enclosed in parentheses,
  • Inclusive page numbers are given.
  • Some resources, such as Web URLs, may be listed in the text when it is the Web site itself that is referred to rather than content on the site.

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