Citation Styles

The following explains the general format of in-text (parenthetical) and reference list citations in the social sciences documentation system of the American Medical Association (AMA). 

In-Text Citation Basics

When you paraphrase or directly quote another author’s work in your paper, AMA format requires the use of in-text citations. The author’s last name is not used for in-text citations. Instead, you will number each instance when you are referencing an article, and then order the articles that way in your reference list.  

Tips:

• Use commas to separate multiple citation numbers in text.  
• Use arabic superscript numerals outside periods and commas, and inside colons and semicolons. 
• When citing the same source more than once, give the number of the original reference, then include the page number (in parentheses) where the information was found.

Examples:

• Diabetes mellitus is associated with a high risk of foot ulcers.^1-3
• Several interventions have been successful at increasing compliance.^11,14-16
• The data of Smith et al¹⁸ is further evidence of this effect.
• As reported previously,^1,3-6
• The results were as follows⁴:
• Further examination of the data in this study revealed other significant discrepancies.^4(p275)

Reference List Basics

Tips:

• Order your reference list by the order in which you cite sources in the paper, i.e. the first article cited (and numbered 1) should appear first on the reference list. Do not organize the reference list by alphabetizing by author or title.
• Invert authors’ names, and use only initials for first and middle names. There should be no periods or spaces between initials.
• If there are more than six authors, only list the first three and add "et al." for the rest.
• Use accepted National Library of Medicine title abbreviations of journal names (see the NLM Catalog of Journals link in the left box).
• Unpublished works and personal communications should be cited in the text, but not included on the reference list.

Examples: