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Citation and Style Guides

A guide to citation, including style guides, writing tools, plagiarism, and copyright.

AMA is primarily used in medical and health science disciplines. In-text citations are noted by using superscript Arabic numerals (like this1). At the end of the document, the reference page lists out the citations in the numerical order that they appear in the text.

Online Style and Citation Guides

Contact a librarian if you need help using this or any citation style.

Frequently Cited Formats

Below are some basic examples of commonly cited material types. For in-text citations, use Arabic superscript numerals outside periods and commas, inside colons and semicolons. In the Reference List, references are listed numerically in the order they are cited in the text. Two references should not be combined under a single reference number.

Check out the Online Citation Guides in the previous section for more examples and instructions for nearly every type of source!

Print Books and Ebooks

Citation in reference list

Print Book: Author AB. Book Title. Edition number (if it is the second edition or above). Publisher's name; copyright year.

Ebook: Author AB. Book Title. Edition number (if it is the second edition or above). Publisher's name; copyright year. Accessed [date]. URL.

In-text citation

sample text from book1

Example

1. Modell AH. Imagination and the Meaningful Brain. MIT Press; 2003. 

Journal Article

When citing journal articles, abbreviate and italicize names of journals according to the listing in the National Library of Medicine database. 

Citation in reference list

Author AB, Author CD. Title of article in sentence case. Abbreviated Journal Title in Title Case. Year;Volume(Issue Number):page numbers. DOI (or URL if no DOI)

In-text citation

sample text from article2

Example

2. Frank S, Jankovic J. Advances in the pharmacological management of Huntington's disease. Drugs. 2010;70(5):561-571. doi:10.2165/11534430-000000000-00000.

Webpage

Citation in reference list

Author AA. (or, if no author is available, the name of the organization responsible for the site). Title (or, if no title is available, the name of the organization responsible for the site). Name of the Web site. [Date published]. Updated [date]. Accessed [date]. URL.

In-text citation

sample text from website3  

Example

3. Cancer Research Funding. National Cancer Institute. Updated June 6, 2011. Accessed November 3, 2012. http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/NCI/research-funding