AMA Citation Format: Medical and Scientific Papers

If you work in the medical or science fields, you might be familiar with the AMA format and citation. Since the AMA guidelines are 1032 pages long, they have made life challenging for students all over the world. The manual describes how to write in AMA format. If you don’t have time to read it but want to master it, this will take you through the simple paper format and citation rules according to the American Medical Association (AMA) Style. We’ve included a format illustration, as well as a prototype for print and electronic sources, for your convenience. But first, let’s define the term.

What is the AMA Citation Format?

The AMA format is a style guide for arranging and organizing academic articles. It enables students studying health care, medicine, and nursing to present their ideas to their reading audiences in a simple framework. The American Medical Association first published the AMA Style Guide, along with the AMA Citation Guide, in 1962, and there haven’t been many updates since then. The intention was to provide a clear and uniform framework for students to present their essays and research papers with facts from reputable sources to back up their claims.

Importance of Using the Format

• Arrange your papers logically
• Make it easier to understand your texts
• Build a context for your claims and thesis statement (s)
• Provide credit where credit is due, the names of talented contributors will be included.
• Stop plagiarism problems

AMA format is needed in writing medical research papers. It is unlikely to gain full credit for your work if you do not format it. Student risk their work being plagiarized, if they do not cite their sources. Most importantly, AMA style is used in educational institutions and magazines. To provide a comprehensive response to the question, “What is AMA format?” we must examine the components of this writing style.

Rules of Formatting

• Text should be double-spaced.
• Use just one “margins of error
• Font size should be 12 and font style can be any. For a scholarly journal, you can use two typefaces (a serif for body text and a sans serif for titles and subheads) with suitable styles such as bold and italics. (5.2.24)
• Using half of the “indentations
• Page numbers should be added starting with the title page. Pages should be numbered sequentially. Page numbers are usually located in the upper right corner of a paper.
• References must be identified and numbered in the order in which they were quoted in your article.

Additional Rules

The superscript numbers will allow you to find the full reference on your AMA “Reference List” tab.

• Each citation number should equate to the reference number.
• A student is recommended to use the Arabic superscript.
• Full references must start with the corresponding number.
• The format of a citation depends on the type of source that a student must cite; knowing how to cite a website does not imply that a student knows how to cite a book.
• A bibliographical entry should include the author’s last name, first and middle initials, and no punctuation.
• To include more than one author, use a comma. 3. Edwards, T., and P.J. Kelvin. Cardiovascular denervation in diabetes.
• With no exceptions, use sentence case for titles (capitalize the first word of the title—no need to capitalize the rest of the words).
• Titles from the National Library of Medicine database should be abbreviated and italicized.
• Using intervals, divide each reference into bibliographic categories.
• Invert the authors’ titles. For the first and middle names, use initials with no periods between them. It should go something like this: Lastname, FirstInitial, MiddleInitial
• After volume numbers, put problem numbers in parentheses (for journals).

 Punctuation Marks Rules

• Where the objects are sub-elements of a bibliographic component or a group of interconnected components, such as the names of authors, use a comma.
• If the elements in the category differ (the release date and title of the source) / if multiple occurrences of interconnected components are available within a group + before the volume identification information, use a semicolon.
• Before the publisher’s name, between the title and the subtitle, and after a connective word (e.g., “In,” “Presented at”), use a colon.

References in AMA

Using proper references within the text and Reference List, as well as proper stylistic matters, is needed for AMA paper format. This involves using headings and capitalizing them accordingly, as well as using line spacing, margins, text types (such as using “one” or “1”, using AM, a.m., or A.M.), page number placement, font, spacing for diagrams, table size and form, and so on.

When available, AMA style includes the use of standard National Library of Medicine [NLM] abbreviations for all journal titles.

Here are some general formatting guidelines for AMA citations:

• The superscript number that corresponds to the corresponding superscript number.
• Inventor (s).
• The title of the post.
• Journal Title in Abbreviation
• Volume(issue): pages; date
• Journal Papers Available Online

 

Other Important Guidelines

A student should avoid using acronyms, abbreviations, or initialisms. It may include recognized units of measurement as well as some well-known terminology. Even if an acronym, abbreviation, or initialism is well-known, spell it out the first time you use it. In the text of a manuscript, mentioned names should always appear as full names. When referring, use the two-letter abbreviation (first name initial and middle name initial).

Except where the number starts the sentence or title, numerals (1, 2, 3, etc.) should be used in all writing. Using AM or PM in small letters to signify the time of day (6 pm). It is preferable to use standard 12-hour clock time. If you need to demonstrate precise timing, you may also use the 24 hour or military time convention.

When providing a date in the document, use numerals for the day and year, and write out the month – for example, June 16, 2015. When using dates in a table, you should use numerals for the month (for example, 16/5/2015).

It is preferable to use SI standard measurements when writing measurements (The International System of Units).  Plain text us used to write numeric values. There is a space between the number and the unit, and there is never a time after the unit (unless it ends a sentence).

In-text Citation Rules

In-text citations support a borrowed piece of knowledge or concept. Additionally, superscripts numbers mark an in-text.  Most importantly, if you use a direct quote from another work, it should be enclosed in quotation marks. If the direct quote is more than four lines long, it should be set off and indented in a separate block, presented in reduced form, and appear without quotation marks. The superscript numbers that label your use of borrowed knowledge and/or ideas should appear outside (or to the right) of commas, intervals, and quotation marks, and within (or to the left) of colons and semicolons.

If you use information and/or ideas from more than one source in a single passage or sentence, make sure to mark each one with a different superscript number.  Commas separate multiple superscript numbers. Personal correspondence, including interviews, emails, and letters, should include facts and/or ideas quoted parenthetically within the text of your article. In the citation, provide the person’s name, as well as the form and date of the contact.

AMA Reference List

It is important to note that when using AMA format, one must provide a specific list of references at the end of your paper which provides information about your chosen sources. Additionally, the list of references should provide specific details about the sources you used in your study, as well as information and/or ideas borrowed from other sources that you used in your article. Lastly, in-text citations are scattered throughout the text, but the complete entry for each of those references is located on a separate page of the essay.

The AMA Reference List format enables readers to locate the source of knowledge on the subject covered and to perform in-depth research on the issue. A superscript number links the in-text citation and its corresponding reference.