Specialist Systems: AMA Referencing

In our Becoming A Proofreader course, we look at some of the most widely used referencing systems, including APA, Chicago, MLA, and IEEE. But there are other systems available! In this post, for instance, we’re going to introduce the basics of AMA referencing.

What Is AMA Referencing?

AMA referencing is the citation style recommended by the American Medical Association. This system is commonly used in scientific writing, including in the AMA’s own journals.

It is a number–endnote system, which means:

• Sources are cited with numbers in the text.
• Each citation number indicates an entry in a reference list (this is where the author should provide full source information for everything they cite).

If you proofread work on medicine or public health, you will likely encounter AMA referencing at some point, so it is a style worth learning. The full rules are set out in the AMA Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors (currently in its 11^th edition).

However, you can usually find information on AMA online as well (just make sure the website is up to date). And to start, you can learn about the basics of this system below.

Basic Citation Style

As mentioned above, AMA cites sources with numbers in the text. The basic rules for this are:

• Use a superscript number to point to each citation in the text.
• Place citation numbers outside periods and commas, but inside colons and semicolons.
• Number sources consecutively (i.e., the first source cited in a document will use the citation number “1,” the second will use “2,” the third “3,” and so on).
• If you cite a source more than once, use the same number each time.

For example, an AMA citation would usually look like this:

Recovery times varied between subjects.¹

The details for this source would then be given in the first entry in the reference list.

When quoting a source, moreover, citations should include a pinpoint citation. To do this in AMA, authors need to provide page numbers in brackets after the citation number:

The treatment was “surprisingly effective” according to one doctor.^2(p1189)

Here, for instance, we’re citing page 1189 of the second source in the reference list.

AMA Reference Lists

In AMA referencing, authors should add all cited sources to a reference list at the end of the document. When proofreading, moreover, make sure:

• All sources are listed in the order they were first cited.
• No source appears more than once.
• Author names are given surname first, followed by an initial without a period.
• Titles of books and journals are italicized, with the first letter of each major word capitalized. For titles of other source types, only the first letter of the first word in the title and subtitle, proper names, and abbreviations should be capitalized.
• Journal titles are shortened using the official NLM abbreviations.

AMA Reference Formats

As with any referencing system, the format for each source in the reference list will depend on its type. We won’t try to cover all source types here, but you can see the basic formats for a book, a print journal article, and a page from a website below:

Print Book: Author name(s) and initial(s). Book Title. Edition number (second edition or above only). City, State (or Country) of publisher: Publisher’s name; copyright year.

Print Journal: Author name(s) and initial(s). Article title. Abbreviated Journal Name. Year;Vol(Issue): complete page range.

Website: Author name(s) and initial(s) or publishing organization. Page title. Name of the website. URL. Accessed [date].

In practice, the references for these sources would look like this:

1. Manford J, Bea A. Adapting to Distance: How Technology Changed Mental Health. 3rd ed. Chicago, Il: Lowdown Publications; 2018.

2. Ranganathan R. Videoconferencing and medical practice. Health Manag Technol. 2020;1(10):11-18.

3. EasyMeeting USA. Video conferencing for the healthcare industry: What is telemedicine? EasyMeeting. https://www.easymeeting.net/video-conferencing-for-the-healthcare-industry-what-is-telemedicine/. Accessed July 4, 2020.

You can find more on different reference formats in AMA on the blog of our proofreading partner, Proofed. Would you like to see more about AMA referencing – or any other citation system – in our courses? If so, just leave a comment below to let us know!

Becoming A Proofreader

For more detail on some of the major referencing systems (as well as some of the not-so-well-known ones!), see our Becoming A Proofreader course. You can sign up for a free trial here.