Reference List - AMA Style (11th Ed): Citing Your Sources

Anonymous works:

If there is no named author, follow the citation style for the item, and omit the author name field. If the item is really authored by a person going by the name Anonymous, use the word "Anonymous" as if it were a complete name of the author, and then use the appropriate style.

Author names in all references:

For materials with 1-6 authors or editors, list all author or editor names.

For materials with 7 or more authors or editors, list the first three, then abbreviate with et al.

Capitalization of titles in reference list:

For journal article titles and book chapters: capitalize the first letter of the first word, proper names, names of trials or study groups, and abbreviations. For titles of books and government documents, capitalize the first letter of each major word, but not articles, prepositions of less than 3 letters, conjunctions, or infinitives.

(note: No guidance is provided regarding capitalization for titles of conference materials, titles of journals, or other titles used in AMA citations.)

Titles of journals:

Use PubMed journal abbreviations. You can find these by using the citing tool within PubMed, or search the NLM Catalog for journal titles to locate the preferred abbreviation. If no abbreviation is found in PubMed or the NLM Catalog, consult section 13.10 of the AMA Manual of Style for standard abbreviations for individual words used in a title.

Non-scholarly or non-peer-reviewed materials appearing in journals (editorials, letters to the editor, comments, interviews, etc.):

Unlike prior editions of AMA style, the 11th edition has removed the suggestion to indicate special types of materials within journals. Cite all materials published in journals using the article style.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.):

"Nonhuman artificial intelligence, language models, machine learning, or similar technologies cannot be listed as authors because these technologies do not qualify for authorship." (quotation from AMA Manual, section 5.1.12). According to a strict reading of the Manual, AI programs should never appear in a reference list as an author or creator of content. Instead, AMA suggest that writers place an acknowledgement into the acknowledgement section of the manuscript or describe how AI was used in the Methods section of the manuscript. The primary goal of the AMA Manual of Style is to share the official JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) guidance for formatting manuscripts for JAMA, so this is helpful in this context. However, it is difficult to put into place in coursework, where assignments typically do not include either an acknowledgements or Methods section. When writing for a class, review the syllabus or speak with the faculty member to determine if you are allowed to use AI tools, then use the guidance on this page to appropriately describe use of AI in your written assignments.

How to cite information when there is no guidance on this website:

This website attempts to summarize over 500 pages of content from the AMA Manual and cannot cover all. Read the AMA Manual of Style, section 3, to find guidance for citing many other types of publications. If there is no guidance in the Manual on your specific type of publication-- which there may be, the Manual does not include everything-- adapt an existing AMA citation style.