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AMA Citation Guide

Citing Journal Articles

Citing Journal Articles

General Notes:

  • Include all authors when six or less
  • For more than six authors, list first three followed by "et al"
  • Use periods after journal titles/abbreviations
  • Place issue numbers in parentheses
  • List first and entire last page number if available

Journal Title Abbreviation Notes:

  • Many journal titles are abbreviated in AMA citations 
  • You must use the correct AMA journal abbreviation in AMA citations
  • To find the correct AMA journal abbreviation:
  • Check out the AMA Manual page on journal abbreviations

Journal Articles

Journal Article Citation Examples

Print
1. Zoccali C, Maio R, Mallamaci F, Sesti G, Perticone F. Uric acid and endothelial dysfunction in essential hypertension. J Am Soc Nephrol. 2006;17(5):1466-1471.

Electronic – DOI present
2. Mason DM, Wang Y, Bhatia TN, et al. The center of olfactory bulb‐seeded α‐synucleinopathy is the limbic system and the ensuing pathology is higher in male than in female mice. Brain Pathol. 2019;29(6):741-770. doi:10.1111/bpa.12718

Electronic – No DOI
3. Bland DK, Fankhanel Y, Langford E, et al. Intensive versus modified conventional control of blood glucose level in medical intensive care patients: a pilot study. Am J Crit Care. 2005;14(5):370-376. Accessed June 25, 2015.  http://ajcc.aacnjournals.org/content/14/5/370.long

Preprint and Repositories

Preprints and Repositories Citation Examples

"Preprints are another online method for publication in which a manuscript is uploaded by authors to a public server, without editing or formatting, and typically without peer review. A preprint may be a predecessor to publication in a peer-reviewed journal; it is “archived” and citable. Preprint servers include arXiv.org, bioRxiv.org, MedRxiv, and many others." AMA 11th edition, Ch 3.11.4.1

Institutional Repositories collect, archive, and digitally disseminate the intellectual property output of an institution, and because of conflicting copyright with publishers, versions of articles within institutional repositories may be slightly different than the published version.  

Preprint article 

1. Morozova O, Li ZR, Crawford FW. A model for COVID-19 transmission in Connecticut. medRxiv. Preprint posted online June 16, 2020. doi:10.1101/2020.06.12.20126391

Institutional Repository 

2. Tseng V. Effect of noise reduction methods in the ICU on sleep quality. UC Irvine. June 8, 2016. Accessed August 17, 2016. http://escholarship.org/uc/item/190551hq​